Well, the weather gods smiled upon us and set the rain back a day so we had a nice warm dry fall day for a hike to the Duck. The trail was in good shape for the most part, although covered with crunchy leaves in places. We actually had views at the lunch spot on Big Hump and could see the ridge across the river with a promontory called St. Peter's Dome. This same ridge becomes the north ridge of The Brothers. There is one old bridge out; the spot is blocked and ribboned. Hikers can drop down and cross safely above the bridge. And there was one blow-down lying length-wise along the trail which had dropped a few branches on the trail. Nothing serious. There were a couple of other hiker groups, but everybody was congenial. There were lots of interesting mushrooms to examine along the path. I noticed some fine wild rhodies on Big Hump and a couple of patches of manzanita. It would probably be a nice spot for a spring hike when the rhodies are in bloom. On the drive back towards Quilcene, I got a good view of Mt. Constance, up the Dosewallips. Pretty. Nice drive home. Days are getting real short, so get to the trailhead early enough in order to get out before dark, unless you enjoy walking with a headlamp or flashlight. Enjoy!

Our group of four left Staircase on the 16th and hit Camp Pleasant for the night. No bugs! The next morning we humped it over First Divide and made Home Sweet Home in the afternoon- hoped to get to Hart Lake that day, but one person in our group had some nasty blisters and needed some rest. We limped to Hart Lake the next day and enjoyed perfect weather, views and berry-eating-bears for two days. We ended up moving camp for two more days to Lake Lacrosse because it was rutting season for the Elk and a large herd was bugling and fighting. There are plenty of great day hikes around the area. Check out: Buck Lake, Oneil Pass and Anderson Glacier (if you can find the Hart Lake shortcut into the Enchanted Valley). There were even more bears on the steep hillsides around Lacrosse lake. Full respect was employed and they regularly came within 100 feet of our camp. However, we were never threatened by them as their interest stayed on eating the huge, ripe berries that appeared to be growing everywhere. In fact, our bear canisters weren't even touched by the bears for the duration of our trip.

The trail to 5 mile camp is in excellent condition. One blow-down at about mile 6 and some small trees over the trail at about mile 7.5. No snow at ten mile camp. Both five and ten mile camps in very good condition. Weather was good Saturday and Sunday. Monday it showered on and off. Some decent views of the valley as you're climbing big hump.

This trail is in great shape, even for an old blind dog. The low elevation (trailhead less than 300 feet)also means there's definitely no snow. The uphill to Big Hump, elev. 1750, which begins about 2.5 miles from the trailhead, was amazingly well graded and smooth with lots of easy switchbacks. Big Hump makes a short day hike destination with views and good open lunch spots. There's even water near the top at the bridge washout and we ran into one guy who had camped on top. Total round trip was about 4 hours.

The trail was in good condition, and the views from the top of Big Hump were okay -- it was cloudy so we didn't see the top of any peaks but it was still nice. Big Hump was a lot steeper than we had thought, but we worked our way up slowly and succeeded! The 1 mile of flat river bottom was very welcome on the way back. There was one bridge out, but had been rerouted just slightly to the right -- very easy to cross.