Spruce Railroad Trail Winter Hike

 When we hiked up to the Pyramid Peak trailhead today, we saw this sign showing the Spruce Railroad Trail as well. We hadn't planned on hiking the Spruce Railroad Trail, so hadn't brought that trail description. I remembered reading that the Spruce Railroad Trail was a fairly flat 8 mile roundtrip hike. So we thought why not hike this trail as well, thinking we were already on the trail and it would be less than the 8 miles.



This first section was a wide asphalt trail in the woods. We later discovered that this 2 mile section was taking us to the trailhead on the west side of the Spruce Railroad Trail. (We ended up hiking 12+ miles on this route today). I later read that   this trail will be part of the Olympic Discovery Trail, planned to extend over 100 miles from La Push on the Pacific Ocean to Port Townsend on Puget Sound.

There were no signs at the west trailhead, just an empty wooden box that sometimes has nature guides in it. At this point, the asphalt ends, and a nice forested trail begins.

On the "official" trail we started with some views of Lake Crescent and the Olympic Mountains to the south.

 Soon the trail was just above the lake, giving beautiful views of the lake and mountains

 Even with the clouds moving in and out, the views were gorgeous.

 Along the way, there are short branch trails leading to the old railroad tunnels. We took a look in the first one, it was very rocky with uneven ground.

 We continued on the main trail, enjoying the twists and turns along the lake shore.

 We frequently stopped to enjoy the view.

 Looking back to the other, smaller entrance to the first tunnel.

 There was a lot of variation on how this trail appeared. We did find lots of mud and mud puddles along the way.

 There were a couple of streams crossing the trail.

 The side trail to the second tunnel. We did not explore this one, as it was getting later and we wanted to reach the east side trailhead before turning around.

Wide angle shot looking across Lake Crescent

 One mile before the eastern trailhead, we crossed this steel bridge over a narrow, deep finger of the lake.

 The last short bit of trail to the eastern trailhead is a wide gravel walk way. There is a picnic area at the eastern trailhead, a nice place to take a break before returning back.

 A nice sign at the eastern trail head. It was fun knowing this beautiful lakeshore trail was along the southern  base of Pyramid Peak, which we hiked earlier in the day.

 As we headed back along the 6 miles we had traveled, we watched the full moon high in the sky. We did need to use our head lamps to find our way along the trail, but found this moon lit up the lake and gave us a look at the mountains to the south. It was a gorgeous night time hike!