Anticipating an adventure, eleven of us showed up for Mildred Lakes hike, we were not disappointed.
As you head down FR 25 (Hamma Hamma) towards the trailhead, mind the numerous potholes in the final 6 unpaved miles.
We wondered if the weather would hold, happily it did, this often steep, rocky and rooty trail doesn’t need any added slickness, definitely best to hike in dry weather. The hike took longer than anticipated, suggest allow extra time to safely negotiate, and keep increasingly earlier dusk times in mind, this is not an area to descend in poor light. There are numerous downed trees, most are easy to go around or over.
The trail is initially obvious but often becomes nothing more than a flagged boot path, so keep looking ahead. After crossing a boulder avalanche field, we needed to do a little scouting at about 1.5 miles in a woody flat area, finding numerous white and pink flags in all directions from previous hikers. (when returning through this area it was easier to briefly use a compass heading from map) At the top of a rocky climb we found a sunny rock landing with great views of Mount Pershing; some of our group opted to stay here and relax.
We had a quick first lunch and continued down through the forest to a camp area, easily crossing Huckleberry Creek a little upstream; splash through or use one of the downed logs. Find the boot path again, cross the next dry creek bed and soon after the trail becomes increasingly steep.
I turned around at a giant notched log steeply angled across the boot path,(about 3 miles, with 1900 gain RT) due to black toe (hmm), deciding to pick huckleberries & hunt for mushrooms I’d noticed popping up. The balance of our group continued to the first lake (of three) and turned around there; reporting the trail to be a hands-on scramble both up and down, clocking up an additional 1 mile & about 1300 gain RT.
Difficulty of the trail aside, this is a wonderful forest with most interesting terrain to visit and enjoy.
We stopped for a welcome dinner on way home from this good workout; tired but happy from yet another great hike in the Olympics.
Rough stats ; about 8 miles RT to the first lake with about 3200 elevation gain RT
Map ; Custom Correct Mount Skokomish-Lake Cushman
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