Last year my brother was on leave from Afghanistan and my mom was up so I decided to take them out in the hills. I had always wanted to hike from Rugged ridge to the Bogachiel but that requires two vehicles and a lot of driving, so now that I had 2 cars I figured it would be perfect.

The wanderer and his brother

The night before, I drove down to the end of Undie Rd. south of forks and left my car at the Bogachiel trailhead then caught a ride home with my brother. The next morning we piled into his car, trucked on up the A-Road, (that’s what the locals call FS29). About 12 miles up the A-Road you take a right, onto FS2913 and cross over the high bridge. There are no markings or signs leading up to the Rugged Ridge Trailhead past the initial sign just off of Highway 101, so unless you really know how to get there, it’s easy to take a wrong turn and totally miss your destination. Not to fear though, just stay on the main road for about 12 miles and off to the right you can catch a glimpse of the bridge if you miss the turn, so it’s not too tough to find it.

About 2 miles past the bridge, up a winding old logging road, it dead-ends in a grassy turn around area. Odds are good that yours will be the only car there; It’s not a very busy trail, although it’s still in pretty good shape up to the Calawah River crossing. Past the river it could use some work, but it’s still quite passable. The trailbegins about 50′ down the road from the parking spot and the parking areas at both ends of the trail are outside of the National Park so a parking permit is not required at either spot.

About a quarter mile up the trail is the park boundary. It’s marked with an info box and little permit station. On past the boundary the trail continues through the trees and up and down into little valleys with streams running though. When we were going through there, the elk droppings covered the trail so thickly you almost couldn’t avoid them. I was hoping to catch a glimpse of a herd, but they stayed hidden.

The Calawah River

After about 3 miles you reach the Calawah River. Here is where I normally turn around. I’ll bring my fishing pole up here, have lunch, cast a line and eventually return to the car. Today though, we kept going, took our shoes off, waded the river and had a snack on the other side. The water only goes up to around your knees later in the summer: It’s probably a little deeper during the wetter times of year.

Past the river crossing the trail continues up and out onto a ridge finger and then back again. It’s never very steep, the terrain is quite mild, but when we were there there were quite a few blow-downs across the trail and in one spot there was quite a chunk of the trail taken out in a slide, luckily there was a tree that had fallen right across the hole. It was quite something.

This stretch of trail is probably the lushest and greenest trail I have ever been on. The trees were huge and the moss was thick. There were mushrooms of all types growing and trees that had fallen years ago were rotting away and feeding the new life. There’s even an Army Corps of Engineers map control station marker up there if you keep your eyes peeled.

At about the 6 mile mark, the Rugged Ridge trail runs into the Bogachiel River trail. Turning left here will lead you up to the Sol Duc/High Divide area. Turning right will lead you downstream, a little over 6 more miles, to the other trailhead.

Bogachiel River

The Bogachiel River is a large beautiful river, wide and shallow in some parts; fast and deep in others. There are sections where it winds through large flats of fine gravel and fresh sign of elk crossing. There are numerous little pull-outs overlooking the river, perfect for sitting in the sun and enjoying lunch.

Honestly, there’s not a lot I remember about this stretch other than it was generally flat, it wound in and out of the forest peeking at the river and once it reached the park boundary, about 2 miles from the end, the trail became quite bland; low, swampy vegetation lined the trail with not a lot to see… not even the river was seen again for the last 2 or so miles. There was a pretty neat log bridge I remember, with a spur trail cut for horses, as they obviously couldn’t navigate the log bridge.

I would like to, one day make the trip up the river trail to the Mink Lake cut-off and down to Sol-Duc Hot Springs, but that will have to be an over night trip; It’s almost 30 miles.

I was recently contacted by the owner of Survival Gear Bags with the opportunity to put together a package deal for you, my readers. My question is this: Would any of you seriously consider buying a pre-packaged kit of stuff from that site? I think it’s a wonderful opportunity as Survival Gear Bags has many great things at already low prices: Water bladders and bottles, packs, knives and many other things.

Granted, their main focus is the tactical and preparedness market, but there’s plenty of overlap into the general outdoor lovers world as well.

Do me a favor, look around and see if there’s anything there you would be interested in. Get back to me. Leave a comment or email me. I really want to know what you think.

White on Green

Last March I started off the hiking season by grabbing my fishing pole and heading up to Eagle Lakes on Aurora Ridge above Lake crescent. I had never been up on the ridge before and I figured it would be nice to get out on a lesser traveled trail. The trail head is a little over 2 miles up the Sol Duc River Road towards the hot springs. There’s a little pull-out with enough room for about 5 or 6 cars, but you will probably never see that many cars parked there at a time.

The trail starts off gradually climbing through a scrubby deciduous forest dominated by alder trees, salmon berries, sword ferns and an occasional stream crossing the old abandoned road that is the trail. Shortly though, around a mile from the parking lot, it turns up the hill and turns almost immediately into a nice open old-growth fir forest.

The trail is never very steep, but it steadily climbs up and up the ridge. The weather was clear and cool that day which made the going easy and comfortable. About 4 miles into the hike, there was snow starting to cover the trail. It was spotty and thin, with the new growth poking through. I love the contrast of green on white out in the mountains, it feels so fresh and clean.

Tracks

Almost simultaneously with the snow covering the trail, I noticed some tracks on the rail going the same direction as I was. They were large. They were from a cat, and the stride was long. My first thought was cougar, but the tracks were at least a day old and I know tracks get larger in appearance as they melt. They could have been bobcat as well, but I figured the stride was to large. Either way, I knew it was safe enough to continue. I was sort of hoping, though, to catch a glimpse of it just to verify what it was for my own personal knowledge.

I followed the tracks for probably 2 miles up the trail. The snow was getting deeper and deeper, but the cat knows the way so I kept following him. Eventually I came to a little sign pointing north to Eagle Lakes. The tracks continued on up the main trail and I could tell where the spur trail was as it disappeared into the forest towards Eagle Lakes, so I followed it into the woods.

It wasn’t 100 yards from the sign where all sign of the trail disappeared. I knew the lakes were pretty much straight downhill from my current location, but I wasn’t sure of the exact heading. I didn’t have my maps on me and the tree cover was way to dense for a GPS signal. I performed a cursory radial grid search to see if I could pick up where the trail was. I swept from the last known point I knew the trail was and gradually worked my way outward, sweeping back and forth in the snow.  I knew that no matter where I went I could follow my tracks back, but I just didn’t feel like killing myself with exertion today. After about 30 or 45 minutes of searching, I gave up and began my trip home.

The hike back down the hill was uneventful until about 1/2 mile from the car. I was walking down the trail when about 50 yards ahead of me a rabbit bolted out of the woods and ran down the road. I thought that was pretty cool. Seconds after, a large black and brown predator jumped out onto the road and was running after it. It wasn’t a bear, it was furry, about the size of a bobcat and had a long furry tail, about 3/4 the length of its’ body. My camera was handy, but I wasn’t able to get a picture of it at that time. So I turned it on and sneaked down the road to see if I could get a peek. The whole situation was actually kind of disconcerting: I have lived in the Pacific northwest my entire life, but have never seen anything like that out in the wild. It was small enough to not be much of a threat, but it was the unknown that had me wondering.

I wasn’t really expecting to see it again, but I about 50 feet past where they came running out of the woods, here comes the predator, running up the road right towards me. I was barely able to get a picture of it before he saw me and ran off into the brush.

At the exact moment he jumped off the road, not even 20 feet behind me the rabbit bolted out of the brush, onto the road and back up the way we came. I almost broke my neck spinning around it startled me so badly.

Fisher

After getting home and investigating it some, I discovered that this critter is a fisher. The National Park has begun re-introducing them into the park in the past couple years. Apparently, there was quite a population of fishers in the past, but got eradicated almost a hundred years ago. I contacted the park and they were pretty excited that I got the picture. They asked if they could use it in their presentations and I, of course, said yes. I’m not sure if they really are using it, or how they are, but I think it’s pretty cool.

One day, I’ll return to Aurora Ridge and actually make it to Eagle Lakes. They may be small and mostly insignificant, but I have to make it now that I’ve been blocked from making it once.