Trip Report for Upper Dungeness River
Where: Olympic National Forest
When: Saturday, May 10, 2014
Stats: 6.8 miles round trip – 600 foot elevation gain
We met at my place at 8:30 am and made it on to the 8:50 am ferry from Edmonds to Kingston. After leaving the main road right by Sequim Bay we wended our way back into the woods on a succession of National Forest roads, arriving at the trailhead a little before noon.
From the moment you park you are accompanied by the sound of water. You cross over the river moving from the parking lot to trailhead and immediately start up into the lush, old growth forest. There are very few times along this easy trail that you cannot hear the river, and during those times you can hear birds instead. The trail rolls up and down, leading you deeper into the woods, following the river, and twice crossing wooden bridges. 3.4 miles in you reach a large meadow next to a gravelly stretch of the river with a restored shelter on one side. Right about this time it started to rain lightly so we stood in the shelter while we ate our midway meal. after about half an hour we turned around and headed back.
While we saw only birds on the actual trail we startled about twenty deer along the road out.
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