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Pyrites
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PostFri Oct 01, 2021 12:10 am 
I always like that Home Sweet Home sat off to the side. You could walk over, or just go by.

Keep Calm and Carry On? Heck No. Stay Excited and Get Outside!
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reststep
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PostFri Oct 01, 2021 10:17 am 
Klondike Ken, thanks for the shelter pictures. I first went to Home Sweet Home on a scout hike around 1949 or 1950.

"The mountains are calling and I must go." - John Muir
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PostFri Oct 01, 2021 4:15 pm 
Klondike Ken: Thanks very much for sharing your photographs. Greatly appreciated. up.gif BK

"I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each."
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Klondike Ken
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PostFri Oct 01, 2021 8:26 pm 
That is a cool aspect of Home Sweet Home's shelter, how it was situated to the side instead of the trail running right next to it. Reststep, did your scouting days take you to Camp Cleland or Camp Parsons? I'm happy to share the old photos...I was very relieved to find them.

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Klondike Ken
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PostFri Oct 01, 2021 8:56 pm 
My buddies and I spent a lot of happy days on the West Side rivers in the 1970s and 80s, especially on the Bogachiel. We found the wonderful horse stable on a super rainy spring break week in 1976. The photographs show the horse stable gloriously full size. In the 1980s, the Bogachiel started gobbling the riverbank and the stable section by section until it was gone. I will resend the Labor day photos again some time later…the slides are way better than those scans.
Bogachiel River horse stable  December 1976  K. Tanner
Bogachiel River horse stable December 1976 K. Tanner
Bogachiel River horse stable  December 1976
Bogachiel River horse stable December 1976
Bogachiel River horse stable  December 1976
Bogachiel River horse stable December 1976
Bogachiel River Horse Stable Labor Day weekend 1977  D. Phillips
Bogachiel River Horse Stable Labor Day weekend 1977 D. Phillips
Bogachiel River Horse Stable Labor day weekend 1977 D. Phillips
Bogachiel River Horse Stable Labor day weekend 1977 D. Phillips
The Hyak Shelter meadow was a sweet little oasis of grass and sky in springtime, complete with a horse enclosure. Great for tossing a frisbee, until our frozen disc splintered into 15 pieces. Klondike Ken
Hyak Shelter and Horse Enclosure Bogachiel River  April 1977 K. Tanner
Hyak Shelter and Horse Enclosure Bogachiel River April 1977 K. Tanner
Hyak Shelter and horse enclosure Bogachiel River  April 1977
Hyak Shelter and horse enclosure Bogachiel River April 1977

meck, RodF
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reststep
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PostSat Oct 02, 2021 2:58 pm 
Klondike Ken, I think Camp Cleland was closed before I became a scout but I do remember seeing some of the buildings at Lena Lake. I did go to Camp Parsons a couple of times around 1948. At that time they had 2 week sessions and the 2nd week was hike week. The first year I was there I went on the Charlia Lakes hike and we hiked right out of camp. The 2nd year I can’t remember but I think we hiked up the Dosewallips.

"The mountains are calling and I must go." - John Muir
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Klondike Ken
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PostSun Oct 10, 2021 7:50 am 
Reststep, I was asking about Camp Cleland on the chance you ever met Earl Hardy or Chet Ullin, if they were still active in Hood Canal Boy Scouting but I don’t think I added enough years in there. Earl and Chet were both from Bremerton and were part of the group of who built Camp Cleland in the 1920s. Chet, Earl and their climbing party made the first ascent of the Middle (1932) and North (1935) summits of Mount Stone. “Ulinn’s Bathtubs” (Stone Ponds), underneath the east flank of Stone, are named after Chet. They took their Scouts all over the eastern Olympics. Earl and Chet named Lake of the Angels in 1927, and added the fun moniker “The Hat Rack of the Gods” to the classic row of trees climbing up the basin from the lake. During the summer of 1992, a Scout leader asked me to help a couple anxious youngsters descend the headwall below Lake of the Angels. After they were off down the route, Earl, his wife, and his son and daughter-in-law happened by. Earl was 84. It did not take much conversation to find out Earl’s connection to the Olympics, and I had the honor of spending several hours that weekend wandering the basin with him and hearing his great stories. We corresponded for about two years, and he sent me a bunch of 1920s and 1930s photographs of the immediate area, including a photo of Carl Putvin’s “cabin” at Upper Lena Lake. It was impressive to see how much the timberline climbed over the decades. My wife and I had a later dinner invite, but a month before the date we sadly received a letter from Earl’s wife saying he had passed from a heart attack. Sonja sent me more pictures, and I passed everything on to the Park with her permission. Earl had asked his pal Chet to send me some letters with details of their explorations. Chet had tons of large, beautiful black & whites. I talked him into telling his story at a large Park presentation at Staircase in 1995, and the crowd loved it. One of the Park spokespersons in attendance immediately invited him to come to Port Angeles for a day and retell it again. A sideways digression from the shelters topic…
Earl Hardy (far right) and family and Vic Stanculescu (ONP)  Lake of the Angels  August 1992
Earl Hardy (far right) and family and Vic Stanculescu (ONP) Lake of the Angels August 1992

RodF
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Klondike Ken
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PostSun Oct 10, 2021 8:07 am 
Hiker's shelter and horse stable at Elkhorn before being moved  Elwha River  December 1991
Hiker's shelter and horse stable at Elkhorn before being moved Elwha River December 1991
Elkhorn hiker's shelter and horse barn beforn being moved  Elwha River  December 1991
Elkhorn hiker's shelter and horse barn beforn being moved Elwha River December 1991
Horse barn at Elkhorn before being moved  Elwha River  December 1991
Horse barn at Elkhorn before being moved Elwha River December 1991
Elkhorn hiker's shelter and horse barn before being moved January 1994 Elwha River K. Tanner
Elkhorn hiker's shelter and horse barn before being moved January 1994 Elwha River K. Tanner
Elkhorn ranger station - Old tool/wood shed in back before being torn down  April 1994
Elkhorn ranger station - Old tool/wood shed in back before being torn down April 1994
The Elwha River started gobbling up the Elkhorn meadow quickly in the early 1990s. By 1994, the winter river sounded like a giant’s bowling alley from the ranger station. Places where we had stood on the bank the night before were often gone. The hiker’s shelter and horse barn were moved back across the trail within a year or so. The ranger station photograph was added since it partly shows the old tool & woodshed out back before it was torn down and rebuilt. In November 2005, my buddy Don and I took my sixth-grader son Samuel to Elkhorn for a long weekend. It rained hard all the way in, and we were saved by Don’s famous cookies at Mary’s Falls to keep us going. Sam later told me his heart just sank as he walked into the Elkhorn opening, and first saw the side of the relocated horse barn. Sam thought that was Elkhorn Cabin, until he spied it on the little hill and smiled. The cabin had a beautiful ceramic baking oven, and baking powder biscuits on the first morning were the rule. Sadly, someone got it way too hot. The metal sides and grate in the firebox were crazily warped and the bricks were crumbling in. I took a peek photo through the shutter this last April 2021, and the baking oven is long gone. There were/are similar ovens at the Enchanted Valley Chalet and at Hayes River.
Elkhorn Cabin and beautiful ceramic baking oven  April 1994
Elkhorn Cabin and beautiful ceramic baking oven April 1994
Sam and Don in Elkhorn Cabin with wet gear hanging everywhere  Elwha River November 2005
Sam and Don in Elkhorn Cabin with wet gear hanging everywhere Elwha River November 2005
Elkhorn Ranger Station Elwha River December 1992 K. Tanner
Elkhorn Ranger Station Elwha River December 1992 K. Tanner
Elkhorn Ranger station  Peek inside through shutter at missing baking oven  April 2021
Elkhorn Ranger station Peek inside through shutter at missing baking oven April 2021
Drum’s classic Two-Seater Outhouse is leaning. And an old, closer shot of the Hayes River Station’s tool shed.
Drum's Two-Seater Outhouse  Elwha River  November 2005
Drum's Two-Seater Outhouse Elwha River November 2005
Drum's Two-Seater Outhouse with serious lean  Elwha River  April 2021
Drum's Two-Seater Outhouse with serious lean Elwha River April 2021
Hayes Guard Station Tool Shed  Elwha River  April 1994
Hayes Guard Station Tool Shed Elwha River April 1994

RodF
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graywolf
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PostSun Oct 10, 2021 3:29 pm 
I appreciate this last set of photos of the Elkhorn area of the Elwha. I started hiking up there every September, starting in 1985, to fly fish for rainbow trout. Went there every year until they shut down the fishery to help with the salmon recovery post dam removal. I remember when they moved the barn and the shelter, and the old garbage dump started to erode out of the river bank. Took my wife there a few years ago so she could see what I consider to be one of my favorite areas in ONP. Thank you very much for your contributions to this thread.

The only easy day was yesterday...
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graywolf
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PostSun Oct 10, 2021 3:56 pm 
Klondike Ken wrote:
Reststep, I was asking about Camp Cleland on the chance you ever met Earl Hardy or Chet Ullin, if they were still active in Hood Canal Boy Scouting but I don’t think I added enough years in there. Earl and Chet were both from Bremerton and were part of the group of who built Camp Cleland in the 1920s. Chet, Earl and their climbing party made the first ascent of the Middle (1932) and North (1935) summits of Mount Stone. “Ulinn’s Bathtubs” (Stone Ponds), underneath the east flank of Stone, are named after Chet. They took their Scouts all over the eastern Olympics. Earl and Chet named Lake of the Angels in 1927, and added the fun moniker “The Hat Rack of the Gods” to the classic row of trees climbing up the basin from the lake. During the summer of 1992, a Scout leader asked me to help a couple anxious youngsters descend the headwall below Lake of the Angels. After they were off down the route, Earl, his wife, and his son and daughter-in-law happened by. Earl was 84. It did not take much conversation to find out Earl’s connection to the Olympics, and I had the honor of spending several hours that weekend wandering the basin with him and hearing his great stories. We corresponded for about two years, and he sent me a bunch of 1920s and 1930s photographs of the immediate area, including a photo of Carl Putvin’s “cabin” at Upper Lena Lake. It was impressive to see how much the timberline climbed over the decades. My wife and I had a later dinner invite, but a month before the date we sadly received a letter from Earl’s wife saying he had passed from a heart attack. Sonja sent me more pictures, and I passed everything on to the Park with her permission. Earl had asked his pal Chet to send me some letters with details of their explorations. Chet had tons of large, beautiful black & whites. I talked him into telling his story at a large Park presentation at Staircase in 1995, and the crowd loved it. One of the Park spokespersons in attendance immediately invited him to come to Port Angeles for a day and retell it again. A sideways digression from the shelters topic…
Earl Hardy (far right) and family and Vic Stanculescu (ONP)  Lake of the Angels  August 1992
Earl Hardy (far right) and family and Vic Stanculescu (ONP) Lake of the Angels August 1992
Chet Ullin was a patient at our clinic (Group Health) in Silverdale, and I got to know him and his wife Phyllis pretty well. I had a copy of "Storm and Sorrow in the High Pamirs", which documents the international climbing expedition that Chet's son Gary was part of. Gary was killed in an avalanche on the North Face of Peak 19 in July 1974, and many years later Chet would still tear up when we talked about climbing and Gary. He asked if I would mind if he wrote a memoriam in my copy of the book, and of course I said yes. Chet and Phyllis wrote a very heartfelt and beautiful memoriam which included a photo of Gary on the summit of Mt. St. Elias in June 1972, as well as two excerpts (hand copied by Phyllis) from Gary's diary from 1970 and 1972. I'm looking at it now, and it still makes me tear up thinking of their loss and how much of a hole Gary's untimely death left in their lives.

The only easy day was yesterday...
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Klondike Ken
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PostMon Oct 11, 2021 11:18 am 
Graywolf, That is a very sad story about Chet and Phyllis Ullin's son. I did not know Chet very well and certainly had never heard the story about Gary's climbing death. Elkhorn is also one of my very favorite places in the Olympics and I used to travel there two or three times every winter/spring during the 1990s and 2000s, either solo or with a friend. I never tired of being there or further up the valley. It had been a while since the last trip, and felt so lucky to visit last April. The extra distance due to the washout makes the area more remote and even more special.

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coldrain108
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coldrain108
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PostMon Oct 11, 2021 9:42 pm 
Klondike Ken wrote:
The extra distance due to the washout makes the area more remote and even more special.
I 100% agree!

Since I have no expectations of forgiveness, I don't do it in the first place. That loop hole needs to be closed to everyone.
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guschiggins51
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PostFri Jan 28, 2022 10:46 pm 
I'm late to the party here. Last time I went by Home Sweet Home shelter in about 2001, it was looking pretty flattened and falling over. The Lena Lake structures which got mentioned here. I know it was an old scout camp... On the far side of the lake (across from where the privy and group camp are) on the way to the Valley of the Hidden Men trail to the Brothers, there are some clearings back in the woods that are flattened out. There is definitely some very old wood back there that looks like some sort of a structure. That would also be the north side of the lake like the description had. I know this is an Olympics topic, but last time hiking past it at Mt. Rainier, I was surprised that the Nickel Creek shelter had been totally disassembled. There's just a big flat area where the group camp used to be.

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Olympic Hiker
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PostSat Jan 29, 2022 11:09 am 
guschiggins51 wrote:
Last time I went by Home Sweet Home shelter in about 2001, it was looking pretty flattened and falling over.
ONP burnt the remains of the Home Sweet Home shelter on the 4th of July weekend in 2001. I camped at Home Sweet Home the day after rangers had burned it. The rangers hadn’t left yet so I had asked about the big burn spot on the ground and they told me it was from burning the damaged shelter. ONP was going to helicopter in a replacement shelter, but Wilderness Watch (I think that was the group) made them not do it with lawsuits.

If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. - Lincoln
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reststep
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PostSat Jan 29, 2022 2:30 pm 
I don’t know about Wilderness Watch but Olympic Park Associates now known as Olympic Park Advocates was involved in preventing the new shelters that had already been built from being lifted to Home Sweet Home and Low Divide. Olympic Park Associates was also involved in preventing the Dosewallips River Road from being reopened.

"The mountains are calling and I must go." - John Muir

RodF
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