We decided to combine a trip to visit some friends of ours in Tahuya on Saturday and be a little closer to the Olympics for a good hike on Sunday. So after a late start Sunday morning, we made our way up to the trailhead for the Lower South Fork Skokomish River Trail along FS2353 in the Olympic National Forest. Although we had hoped for the same kind of mostly-sunny weather we had the day before at Deception Pass, we were not disappointed to find foggy vistas on our way.
At the trailhead, we quickly sorted out out ten essentials. The hardest part was picking which foodstuffs we would take with us for our lunch. We signed the trail register and I took note of the "Couger sightings" notice on the kiosk before starting the climb up the hill into the river basin.
Trails that start out instantly uphill are the damnedest thing. No time to warm up the lungs or ligaments... just straight into it. Several hundred feet later though, and we had crested this earthen gate into an otherworldly place. This is what you think of when you hear phrases like "Olympic rain forest". At this dim time of year, still everything was a rich green and that which wasn't normally green was covered in various hues of moss and lichen to complete the pallette. As we hiked along the Skokomish River, we ducked up and down the gorge, scrambling across the many tributaries that flood it. Some of them were clearly worse than others but there were constant signs of trail maintenance crews trying to keep Mother Nature at bay.
Realizing a hard limit for turn-around time thanks to the short winter days, we reached an amazing wide-open sandbar formed by gushing floods of silt from the higher places. We decided to have lunch in this strange deserted place. Shortly though, we were on our return, full of food, jolly with rum, and cheered by the spectacular day we were having. As the wetter air moved in and the first sprinkles came, we weren't even bothered as we traded holding each others' packs to don our rainshells without even slowing our pace. As the twilight began to give up its hold on the land, we made it back to the Jeep and agreed that this was one of our favorite hikes ever.
More pics can be seen HERE.
At the trailhead, we quickly sorted out out ten essentials. The hardest part was picking which foodstuffs we would take with us for our lunch. We signed the trail register and I took note of the "Couger sightings" notice on the kiosk before starting the climb up the hill into the river basin.
Trails that start out instantly uphill are the damnedest thing. No time to warm up the lungs or ligaments... just straight into it. Several hundred feet later though, and we had crested this earthen gate into an otherworldly place. This is what you think of when you hear phrases like "Olympic rain forest". At this dim time of year, still everything was a rich green and that which wasn't normally green was covered in various hues of moss and lichen to complete the pallette. As we hiked along the Skokomish River, we ducked up and down the gorge, scrambling across the many tributaries that flood it. Some of them were clearly worse than others but there were constant signs of trail maintenance crews trying to keep Mother Nature at bay.
Realizing a hard limit for turn-around time thanks to the short winter days, we reached an amazing wide-open sandbar formed by gushing floods of silt from the higher places. We decided to have lunch in this strange deserted place. Shortly though, we were on our return, full of food, jolly with rum, and cheered by the spectacular day we were having. As the wetter air moved in and the first sprinkles came, we weren't even bothered as we traded holding each others' packs to don our rainshells without even slowing our pace. As the twilight began to give up its hold on the land, we made it back to the Jeep and agreed that this was one of our favorite hikes ever.
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