Enchanted Valley

June 13-15, 2014

Mountaineers B3 backpack up the Quinault River within the Olympic National Park. Even though the weather forecast was gloomy (80% chance of precipitation some days), we managed to have mostly dry backpack. This turned out far better than anyone in our party had anticipated.

We camped both nights at Oneill’s Creek camp. Mice were a small nuisance to some in our group. One mouse actually chewed a hole in one tent and ran up one William’s arm.

On day 2, we day hiked to Enchanted Valley, the highlight of the trip. There is a very interesting foot bridge crossing the Quinault River just before entering the Enchanted Valley. There are numerous waterfalls on the northwest face of the valley. In the lower valley on the way in, we saw a small herd of elk, or perhaps we only saw a few members of a large herd. On the way out, just after leaving the valley, we saw an even larger group, perhaps 40 to 50 members. Trail runners would probably miss seeing this herd – they are quiet and blend rather well with the environment. We also saw ducks, and a red breasted sapsucker. Thanks to Joanna and Barbara, who knew a lot about what we were seeing for identifying birds and plants, I learned to identify sword fern, bracken fern, licorice fern, deer fern, lady fern, and maidenhair fern on this trip. This region is so diverse with plant life that we could not identify everything we saw.

I have posted hiking stats and pictures to my site at http://alpinerover.com/?p=1029

Thom Rose posted a well written report to WTA at http://wta.org/go-hiking/trip-reports/trip_report.2014-06-16.9440328860/