[reststep]

I hiked part way up the Putvin Trail on Friday April 25th in Olympic National Forest. There is a 2 lane paved road now all the way to the Lena Lake trailhead. After the end of the pavement it is about 5 more miles on a good gravel road to the where the Putvin Trail starts. At the beginning you have the option of taking the trail or an old closed road. I walked up the old road to where the trail crosses it and beyond that about a quarter mile to a washout I had heard about. At this gulley the road is gone! I don't know if it is possible to make it across there but it was not anything that I wanted to try. I understand that people used to use this road as a shortcut to Scout Lake. I still had lots of time so I hiked on up the Putvin Trail to the flat area before the first headwall at about 3800 ft. There was very little snow up to this point. It is a good thing because I forgot my sunglasses. There was still snow on the trees however not too far above. The big snow in the winter of 98-99 sure did some devastation in this area. There were lots of grouse making that woof woof woof sound all through the forest. A couple of times the woof woof woof sound was very close and I was able see the grouse sitting on a branch near the trunk of the tree. It was cool. I have been hearing that sound for years and that is the first time I actually spotted one in a tree. Here is a picture of Mt. Pershing from the Putvin Trail.

Mt. Pershing

[Sore Feet]

I was up in this area last Tuesday checking out Hamma Hamma Falls, and I am happy to report that the Hamma Hamma Road is drivable, by any standard 2wd car, all the way to the end. I was surprised by the washout area. I would have thought that whatever closed the road for that long would have been due to a perrenial stream flooding, not just rain / snowmelt as it looked like. Perhaps a bigger creek got temporarily diverted long enough to damage the road.