When Olympic National Park was created in 1938, the National Park Service inherited a large percentage of the existing trail system. The agency then added several new trails, but the mileage was not extensive.
Trails in the Olympics have been lost as a result of the building of logging roads, being abandoned, or lack of maintenance. As roads have proliferated, the mileage available to users of recreational vehicles has steadily increased, but the trail mileage has significantly decreased. In addition to the hundreds of miles of roads where recreational vehicles may be driven, about half of the national forest’s trail mileage is also open to motorbike travel as well as to mountain bikes.
Numerous fragments of former trunk trails can be found today in the national forest. Logging roads frequently paralleled trunk trails and often severed their branches, separating one portion of a trail from another. Despite little or no maintenance, the fragments are often in surprisingly good condition. Although they provide an enjoyable hiking experience, they do not traverse wilderness terrain.
Trail mileage has been lost in both the national forest and the national park through lack of maintenance. Trails have become choked with brush, windfalls have not been cut out, the paths not regraded where they have been badly eroded or obliterated by slides. This has been due, at least in part, to lack of funds. Other trails have been lost because they have been abandoned or relocated.
In addition to constructed trails, the Olympics have numerous paths which came into existence simply because people walked that way, following routes that offered the least resistance. Such way trails, as they are called, can be found throughout the mountains wherever hunters, anglers, prospectors, climbers, and sightseers have followed streams and ridges or wandered from one makeshift camp to another. Although exceptions occur, such footpaths are generally inferior to constructed routes, having steeper gradients that provide rougher, less secure footing. The majority are not well defined, date from years ago, and often coincide in part with game trails. Many are unknown except to the locals, and others have become lost to everyone because they have been hidden by the undergrowth, which quickly conceals a path that is not used regularly.
Both the national park and the national forest have a few nature trails built especially for casual visitors. Usually located near ranger stations or campgrounds, they are the antithesis of way trails—broad, well marked, with easy grades, often graveled, at times paved.
When it built the trails years ago, the Forest Service constructed log-and-shake shelters at intervals of 8 to 10 miles, in both the low and high country, as housing for trail-maintenance crews. When not occupied, the shelters were open to the public and frequently used by backpackers. After the creation of Olympic National Park, the National Park Service maintained the shelters that were under its jurisdiction, repairing or replacing broken-down ones. However, use of the wilderness increased greatly after World War II, and several decades later the areas near the shelters revealed signs of overuse and deterioration. In fact, the shelters themselves have, for years, been considered fair game by the people who have stayed in them. On cold, rainy days they have torn shakes from the sides and roofs for fuel or, finding nothing else to do, have laboriously inscribed their names and initials on the logs, plus the dates of their visits.
After studying the matter, the National Park Service decided to remove the shelters because they tended to concentrate people in particular locations. Many backpackers objected, however, with the result that the agency modified its policy, removing or relocating certain shelters but retaining others (primarily in the forested valleys) as emergency huts where hikers can hole up during severe storms.
HIKING
The Olympic Mountains exhibit splendid forest and alpine scenery which can be visited with comparative ease. Mount Olympus, the culminating point, is not quite 8000 feet high, yet it is similar in appearance, though miniature in comparison, to the world’s great peaks. Because the elevation is low, its effects are negligible and hikers or climbers are quickly conditioned. They do not suffer from altitude sickness and are spared the rigors of combating fierce winds and extreme cold, of pitting their strength against the thin air of high altitudes. This fact is appreciated by most backpackers or climbers, although it may diminish the challenge sought by dedicated alpinists. However, the latter can test themselves in the Olympics, if they wish—by climbing Mount Olympus with 60-pound packs during a midwinter blizzard.
Occasionally they do, but not many years ago the Olympics were virtually isolated during the winter. Most people restricted their visits to the summer and fall months, as they still do, with lesser numbers going in the spring. Many found the Indian summer weather of the autumn months the best time of the year to go on long trips in the backcountry. With the increasing popularity of cross-country skiing and winter mountaineering, however, people now visit the Olympics throughout the year. In fact, winter ascents of the peaks are no longer unusual, although they cannot be said to have become commonplace.
However, the Olympics are primarily trail country, and the opportunities for walking are almost unlimited. When hikers start up the trail with their packs, leaving roads and civilization behind, they enter another world, one where living is reduced to primitive, elemental terms despite the sophisticated equipment and trail foods available today. Although the delights of the wilderness include comparative freedom from regulations, visitors should keep in mind the basic rules of conduct. For example, horses have the right of way on trails, but are not permitted in camping areas. People who use horses, burros, or llamas as pack animals should realize that grazing may be inadequate and therefore carry feed for their livestock. Except where walking cross-country is necessary to reach specific destinations, hikers should stay on the trails, and should not cut switchbacks because this leads to erosion that disfigures the slopes. Hunting is prohibited in the national park but permitted in season in the national forest. Likewise, motorbikes are not allowed on the national park trails, but they are permitted on some national forest trails, not on others. The riders are required to stay on the trails, yield the right of way to both hikers and horses, and equip their machines with spark arresters approved by the Forest Service. When traveling on national forest trails, hikers should bear these facts in mind and at all times should watch out for trail bikes (even though hikers have the right of way). During the hunting season hikers should wear red or orange hats and be alert for hunters.
The time required to hike the trails varies greatly, depending upon numerous factors, including one’s age, physical condition, stamina, motivation, degree of freshness or fatigue, weight of pack, the weather, and the condition of the trail. A psychological factor is also involved: when the pack is heavy and the path is rough, the trail will seem to be much longer, and this may retard one’s rate of progress. Generally speaking, however, backpackers can expect to travel level trails at the rate of 2.0 to 2.5 miles/3.2 to 4.0 kilometers per hour; 3.0 mph/4.8 kph if they are exceptionally fast. On the uphill stretches, 1.5 to 2.0 mph/2.4 to 3.2 kph is a good rate, and the average hiker will cover 2.0 to 3.0 mph/3.2 to 4.8 kph when traveling downhill.
The prudent hiker in the Olympics keeps one eye on the sky and always packs wet weather gear—parka or poncho, rain pants or chaps, pack cover, and tent. Quite often, of course, one can successfully violate this rule—at least for a day or two—but the weather changes rapidly in the Olympics, and cloudless skies at sunset are no guarantee that the next day will be clear. Perhaps a front will move inland during the night, the stars disappear, and the backpacker awaken to the gentle patter of raindrops striking the tent. The weather can thus shift within a few hours, skies with unlimited visibility giving way to fog and clouds so thick one can see scarcely a hundred yards; or sunshine may be replaced by steady rain.
The weather does not always change quickly, however, particularly during late summer and fall, when a high-pressure cell often settles over the Pacific Northwest. At such times skies may remain blue for a month or more, and people have gone on outings lasting a week or two when every day was clear, with no rain. Conversely, they have also gone on trips that began coincident with the onset of stormy weather and thus experienced dismal gray skies and rainfall on a daily basis. However, both instances cited are unusual; during late summer and fall, rain can be expected to occur on two or three days