Olympic National Park - Dosewallips

I visited Olympic National Park - Dosewallips River main stem for five days and four nights in late July 2020. It was cloudy the first day and sunny after that, getting warmer every day. This is on the (relatively) dry east side of the park.


The road in to the trailhead used to go almost 20 miles to a car campground. But a flood in 2003 washed the road out and now you have to walk 6.5 miles on the old gravel road to get to the old trailhead. Here is an old road sign two miles in.


Lots of nice creeks going in


These long valleys in the Olympics require walking many miles in the forest before you get views. If you find that boring, you should go elsewhere. After getting on the regular trail, there was miles of this


And miles of this


I camped in the forest at Deception Creek after 14 miles. On day 2, it starts to open up and that means lots of wildflowers




But unfortunately also very brushy sections of trail like these. The trail is well worn under all this, but the ground is not even, so you must go very slow to keep from tripping. Very tedious.


You also start getting some views


Various kinds of bridges, this over Butler Creek


This is Dose Meadows (pronounced Dosey), where I camped for night 2, with Mt. Claywood above. Camp was at the edge of the trees to the left.


After setting up camp and relaxing a bit, I left for an afternoon hike up to Hayden Pass, with more views


Lots of avalanche lilies


Approaching the pass



One of the small sections of snow left, with deep footsteps


From the pass, I scampered up this knob for the best views


Looking south


Looking back at the Dosewallips Valley


Looking due west at Mt. Olympus


Walking back to camp through meadows


The Dosewallips River behind camp


The next day: even the east side of the Olympics has huge trees. Note the trekking pole for scale


After a failed attempt to hike up to Gray Wolf Pass due to too many trees down on the trail, I backtracked to Bear Camp for the night, with this view


The next day it was 10 miles back out to Dose Forks camp. In the evening I took a short stroll on the West Fork trail to the high bridge


Looking down in the gorge below


And on the final day out on the old road, funny they don't get rid of these signs of old


Here is the washout that closed the road


Next to the road there is a cut log


Here is a closeup of that marker in the middle: the tree was born in 1570! The other marker said died in 2020