THE RAINSHADOW
After a few days working in
Denver, I flew straight to Seattle for my next assignment. Fortunately, I had a long weekend
first. I spent it with my friends,
Brian, Jill, and their kids. They moved
to Bainbridge Island, which is across Puget Sound from Seattle, a little over a
year ago. My flight into Seattle was
late, and I didn’t collect my luggage until around 8pm. By some miracle, I picked up my rental car
and made it downtown just in time to catch the 9pm ferry. I met Brian on the boat, and we headed for
Bainbridge Island together.
We got off to a leisurely
start on Friday. After one of Jill’s
great breakfasts, Brian and I decided to go hiking. The forecast looked rainy, and our late start ruled out a long
drive. This combination of factors
encouraged us to check out the Olympic rainshadow. Most of the storms that approach the Olympic peninsula come from
the southwest. Mount Olympus and the
other high peaks in the interior block the storms, creating an unusually dry
area on the northeast side of the peninsula.
Since that area isn’t far from Bainbridge Island, Friday seemed like the
perfect day to check it out.
We crossed the Hood Canal
Bridge and followed highway 101 into the town of Sequim. Our destination for the day was the Gray
Wolf River. A trail follows the lower
part of the river, outside of the National Park. Currently it runs four miles, before ending at the site of a
washed out bridge. The trail actually
continues beyond that point into the Park, but continuing would require fording
the river, or finding some other way across.
For us, an 8-mile dayhike sounded perfect.
I found two sets of
directions to the trailhead. The Falcon
guidebook to Olympic National Park suggested taking the Taylor Cutoff Road just
west of Sequim. I also found another
route on the internet that follows Palo Alto Road from just east of
Sequim. We decided to follow the
guidebook, which led us to the trailhead without any difficulty. We took the other route on the way home, and
thought it seemed a little quicker. The
other route also took us across a bridge over the Dungeness River, which is
another beautiful mountain stream. At
the bridge is the Dungeness Forks campground, which appears to be an isolated
and attractive place to car camp.
It was a bit before noon
when we started down the trail.
Initially we followed an open ridge that offered a few limited views of
the surrounding ridges. Before long, we
entered the woods and began descending towards the river. We passed two signed junctions with the Cat
Creek Loop Trail, which descends to the river farther downstream. We decided to hike it on the return, if time
allowed.
We descended into a lovely
forest that only got better the farther we hiked. We may have been in the rainshadow, but the forest was still much
wetter than the Rockies and many other areas I’ve hiked. Moss hanging from the trees indicated that,
rainshadow or not, the area still gets a fair bit of precipitation. We were appreciative of the rainshadow
effect today though, as rain seemed to be a certainty virtually everywhere
else.
We reached the riverbank,
and passed several fine campsites. We
reached a large gravel bar that offered a great view of the river, and couldn’t
pass it by. We stopped there for lunch,
before packing up and continuing upstream.
Before long, we began
climbing steadily away from the river to avoid some sheer bluffs. Along the way we reached our first
challenge. A landslide had deposited 7
or 8 trees across the trail. Most of
them were easy to climb over or under, but one required crawling. On our return, we discovered that it was
much easier to skirt around them on the uphill side.
The climb didn’t last too
long, and before long we had descended back down to the river. This was my favorite part of the trail, as
it followed the river past numerous rapids and pools. There were some spectacular riverside campsites here, too. Even the trees appeared to be bigger here.
A few minutes later, we
reached a steep slope with log steps.
In hindsight, this would’ve been a great place to turn around. The steps led to a treacherous stretch of
trail that clings to a steep, badly eroded dirt slope. The footing here is poor, and a slip
would’ve sent us tumbling into the whitewater below. We finally made it through, only to find ourselves at the end of
the trail. Very little remained of the
trail bridge, except a bit of lumber on the far side of the river. There is a fallen tree across the river
here, but crossing it would require quite a bit of courage. While we were here, we were startled to see
two other hikers approaching from upstream on the far side of the river. We had only seen two people earlier, and we
certainly weren’t expecting to see anyone there. They probably came from another trailhead and hiked downstream to
that point.
We made it back across the
nasty slope, the whole time wishing we had turned around before it. From there, we had a fairly uneventful hike
back out. A few sprinkles seemed to
promise more rain on the way, but it never happened. It was getting late by the time we reached the Cat Creek Loop, so
we decided to skip it.
That evening, Jill made us
made steaks, and we taught their daughter, Kaitlyn, how to play Spades. She picked up the game quickly, and we all
stayed up pretty late having fun.
Saturday looked like a total
washout, so we got up late. That
afternoon, the anticipated foul weather seemed to have missed us, so Brian and
I decided to check out some parks on Bainbridge Island. We decided to visit either The Grand Forest
or Gazzam Lake. Boy, you’ve really got
to be careful saying the last three words of that last sentence out loud!
We did a short but pleasant
walk through the Grand Forest. The
forest is lovely here, and a lengthy network of trails provides a number of
hiking options. Best of all, the trails
weren’t muddy. For me, the real
highlight of the Grand Forest was the numerous Great White Trillium in bloom. I’m sure we saw hundreds of them before we
returned to the car. My favorite aspect
of the Grand Forest is that it is there.
You could say that real estate on Bainbridge Island is a bit
pricey. It’s refreshing to find a place
where the temptation to develop such a place was resisted. In many places, The Grand Forest would’ve
just been turned into a subdivision, or worse.
Of course, part of the reason that real estate on Bainbridge is so
pricey is that places like The Grand Forest have been protected.
We still had some time to
kill, so we decided to check out Gazzam Lake.
A fairly long walk down a wide and occasionally muddy trail led us to
the lake. The main path stayed well
above the water though. We didn’t get a
great view of the lake, and the woods were nothing compared to the Grand
Forest. The Gazzam Lake Park is still a
nice place for recreation, but I was definitely more impressed with the Grand
Forest.
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Please remember to Leave No Trace!