Dosewallips River Hike

Drove out to the Dosewallips River Road to hike. This is located off of Hwy 101 along the Hood Canal at Brinnon. The "trail" begins where the Dosewallips River took a large chunk of the road out in 2002 at 9.8 miles along the Dosewallips River Road. However, there is also a stream going across the road at about 8.5 miles along the road. Medium to high clearance vehicles seem to have no trouble going over this washed out area, but everyone should decided for themselves. The driver I was with did not feel comfortable continuing, so we parked here and walked the additional mileage each way. From the further parking area it is about 5 miles to the Dosewallips campground with trails continuing much further into Olympic National Park. We did the short 1.5 mile Terrace Loop Trail before the trails divide. Overall hike today was 14.8 miles with a minimum of 1,060 elevation gain. Those who carried GPS had our overall up and down elevation gain at 1,800-2,000 ft.

 Above and to the left are photos of the stream crossing the road at the "newer" washout area.













Once pass this washout, the road is nice.

 This is where the road was washed out in 2002. And where the Dosewallips River Trail begins.

 There is a bypass trail that begins about 150 ft east of the washout on the north side of the road. It climbs up a couple of switchbacks before descending down to the other side and rejoins the old road.












There are several streams along the way, rushing to join the Dosewallips River.

 We passed some large rock cliffs along the way.

 After the road enters Olympic National Park, the Dosewallips River enters a tight channel for a series of beautiful cascades.

Some wide angle shots of these areas:

 Further upstream, the river bed widens and the river moves more sedately.

The Dosewallips Campground

 Dosewallips Ranger Station

 Log crossings that leads to the trails beyond the ranger station.

 This is a nice river trail, lots of beautiful trees, moss and ferns.

 Some more views of the Dosewallips River as we returned to the trailhead in the afternoon.

 Only saw a few wildflowers in bloom today.