We had a permit for the Enchantments but fires all over eastern Washington plus a fire close to our destination was cause for the Forest Service to cancel our permit. Plan B was to backpack a 40+ mile loop in Olympic National Park where there were no fires, no smoke.
Day 1: Get permit from a ranger named Pablo in Port Angeles. He talked us out of our original plan, saying that our third day would be too strenuous. With permit in hand we drove back to Deer Park from Port Angeles. Our backpacks were loaded with 5 days worth of provisions. Heavy. The first part of our hike took us through a nice grassland and an old burned area before plummeting 3300' down into a confluence of three streams: Grand Creek, Cameron Creek, and Grey Wolf River. Our feet and legs hated us from the beginning. At the the Three Rivers shelter we stopped for lunch and addressed blisters on our feet. The day was young. The next part of the route took us up 1900' through the woods, following the Grey Wolf River. We were glad to see our camp at a place simply called "Falls" for no clear reason. The campsites weren't exactly flat but we found a spot that suited our needs and began camp chores: setting up the tent, filtering water, making dinner, finding the bear wire to hang our food bags, etc. It gets dark early this time of year so we were in the tent around 7:30 p.m. Mileage: 10.
Day 2: A chipmunk took a flying leap on our tent, scaring the beejeebers out of us. No bears, deer, or goats visited us in the night. It wasn't light yet so we went back to sleep. Daylight arrives around 7:00 but the sun was still on the other side of the ridge. Our tent was soaked from condensation. The stove took forever to boil water. We finally got out of camp at 10:30 a.m. after drying the tent as much as possible. The sun was still above us but we'd walk into it soon. The trail continued through the woods then opened up to a lovely basin. Grey Wolf Pass was above us yet but the fall colors were beautiful and the sun was out. We had a wonderful view of the drainage we had just hiked up. On Grey Wolf Pass we looked down into the Dosewallips River drainage, our route for the remainder of the day. Which meant an agonizing descent since our legs and feet still hadn't forgiven us from the long descent from the previous day. The Dosewallips trail was forested but otherwise non-descriptive. We saw lots of bear scat but none of it was particularly fresh. At Bear Camp we saw a crew of three working on the shelter. They were nearly done after having spent about 2 months working on it. Further up the trail we came to our camp at Dose Meadows. Again, we had our choice of sites because we were the only people there. After dinner the moon came out. There's a nice view from this camp. Mileage: 11.4.
Day 3:A little frost on the tent but it was mostly dry. We were more efficient that morning so got out of camp an hour earlier than the previous day. Our first task was to hike up to Lost Pass. The first part was through the woods but then the landscape opened up. On the other side we came across another pair of hikers doing the same loop but in the opposite direction. They were taking more time to complete the loop by hiking fewer miles each day and spending more time in camp. The second pass of the day was Cameron Pass. The hike down into the basin was a little tricky but the trail was good enough and thankfully we didn't have any steep, icy snow patches to cross. We were supposed to camp at the bottom of the basin but we were there by 2:30 and didn't feel like stopping for the day. The sun was out but the temperature had dropped so sitting in camp would not have been very comfortable so we continued up to Grand Pass, the third pass of the day. The trail again begins in the trees but comes out in the blueberries, which are turning red (the leaves), and heather. From Grand Pass we hiked down back into a valley then stopped at the first lake, Gladys Lake. We had hoped to reach Moose Lake but it was getting late and cold, plus we were tired. Frost formed on the tent even before we finished dinner. Mileage: a little less than 10.7
Day 4: My 25F sleeping bag wasn't adequate but thankfully Randy had his winter bag and his down jacket so I stuffed my bag with his jacket and stayed warm enough. Barely. The morning temperature was 21F. Lake Gladys had frozen over. We started hiking wearing gloves, hat, jacket. Brrr… A half mile later we were in the sun at Moose Lake. That would've been a nice campsite, especially since it was 30 degrees warmer. We lost the trail while exploring the campground so traveled cross country until we saw Grand Lake. We knew the trail was down there so we made our way down to the lake until we ran into the trail. Our route took us up to Lillian Ridge, which then traverses over to Hurricane Ridge. We saw several day hikers as there's a drive-up trailhead at Obstruction Point. Most of them were interested in our route and we were able to point to three ridges away where we had began. Plus we had some fantastic view of Mount Olympus, Port Angeles, even Victoria, BC. We could see Deer Park, where the car was parked. It would still be several hours of hiking but we enjoyed the views along the open ridge and started reminiscing about where we had been. The descents, even the mild ones, were painfully slow. I had hoped to get back to the car around 4:00 but that time had come and gone. The final push was over a treed feature called Green Mountain, which seemed to take forever. But then we were on the final ascent back to the trailhead. We reached the car by 5:30. Mileage: a little more than 11 miles.
Here are the photos.