[Hesman]

July 27 Getting my usual early start did not happen, since I was in no rush to get to any destination, but with the general idea that it would be nice to make it all the way to Tenmile Camp. I began hiking at 10:45 in the morning from the trailhead and about half way to the top of Little Hump, I met a lone hiker on her way out to the trailhead. When I arrived where the trail first comes to the river's edge, I stopped to drink some water and notice that the river was full from all the melting snow. By now it was getting warm and I hadn't even started the climb up the trail to the top of Big Hump. Even though the Puget Sound was overcast, it was sunny and warm when I had arrived at the trailhead. It was a warm hike to the top of Big Hump. When I made it to Fivemile Camp, I stopped to walk down the short side trail to the camp and check out the river, noisily full of water. After taking several pictures and resting for about fifteen minutes, I began hiking up the trail again. By now, it was early afternoon and I guessed it was getting around 80 degrees, but now that the trail was relatively flat (the trail gains only 200 feet in elevation in five miles from Fivemile Camp to Tenmile Camp), it wasn't to bad hiking in the warm sunny weather. After hiking for a bit over 3.5 hours I entered Olympic National Park and about another half an hour after that I passed a beautiful riverside camp which was full of tents. I stopped here to fill up my water bottles and saw that there were two large NPS bear canisters meant to be carried on pack horses. Seeing the bear canisters I guessed that this must be the camp of a trail crew. After filling up my water bottles, I continued hiking up the trail. About a mile or so, upstream of the national park boundary is where the Tenmile Fire of 2009 starts. It burned pretty much like the Constance Fire of last year. All the understory plants and trees, along with the duff was burned to the raw soil. All the old growth trees only had burnt bark and are still alive. All the trees that did not have thick bark did not survive since they burnt up in the fire. I hiked through patches of where the fire did not burn along the river and the fire stopped about a quarter of a mile before reaching Tenmile Camp. One of the trail crew people I talked to said he had been told the fire mainly burned on the side of the ridge (towards the crest of the ridge between the Duckabush and Dosewallips) up to about 2500 feet in elevation. After seeing the last of the 4 person trail crew, I did not see anyone else for the rest of the hike. The trail crew has cleared the trail to the LaCrosse Pass Trail Junction and after taking their six days off will be back next week to finish clearing the Duckabush Trail and the LaCrosse Pass Trail to LaCrosse Pass. When I arrived at Tenmile Camp I found the spot that was the most level and setup camp. I rest for awhile before eating dinner. I read for awhile and then went to bed since I was tired from a long day of hiking. July 28 I was up pretty early and ate breakfast before I hiked up the trail to where ever I was going to turn around. As I was eating breakfast, I decided that perhaps I should hike out a little ways this afternoon, so I wouldn't have such a long ways out the next day. I had a couple of chores I wanted to do once I got home the following day. So I decided to hike to about where Crazy Creek flows into the Duckabush or perhaps a little farther up the trail before turning around. It hadn't really cooled off much overnight, so it was quite the warm hike to Crazy Creek. About halfway to Crazy Creek, the trail passes by a deep gorge that the river thunders through. A very short spur trail offers a spot to peer into the abyss, but it overhung the river a bit, so I didn't go the very edge. When I reached Crazy Creek, I stopped to take a short rest and take a few pictures of the interesting rock formations along the river immediately across from where Crazy Creek flows into the Duckabush. I decided that I would hike up the trail a little ways farther and I hiked as far as Pitch Creek, so says the very small sign I never noticed before. Plus, it has been 9 years since I last hiked this particular section of the Duckabush Trail, so I might have seen the sign before and didn't remember seeing it. Upon returning to Tenmile Camp, I reflected that the section of trail I just hiked is probably the most beautiful sections of trail in the Olympics. I have always liked this section of trail, between Tenmile Camp and Upper Duckabush Camp. It is a spot that is utterly quiet and its tranquility, with the distant murmur of the river, is something that only being there in person can it be fully appreciated. Especially when one is alone, without another soul to be seen or heard. Once I returned to Tenmile, I ate a leisurely lunch, before I began packing up my tent and other belongings for the short hike down the trail towards the trailhead. I decided that I would camp where I had seen the trail crew camp at. I correctly assumed that since they had left yesterday for their week off, that they had packed up all their stuff. So, I had the whole camp to myself. Since the mosquitos were mildly bothersome, I rested inside my tent and read the book I had brought along. Later in the evening I cooked up some food, read a little more, before going to bed. July 29 I was awake rather early in the morning and I was on the trail at 6:30AM. I made it to Fivemile Camp in an hour and saw one tent. This was odd because when I arrived at the trailhead there were more cars and people signed in on the trail register for overnight hikes to match up with the one tent I had seen at Fivemile Camp on my hike out. I thought this was unusual since I had seen no one since Tuesday afternoon and I knew where all the camp spots are on the Duckabush Trail between where I had camped last night and the trailhead. Where some people could have camped would have involved some serious bushwacking just to get to the edge of the river or the scaling of bluffs along the river just to reach the river bed. I could only wonder where all these hikers had hidden their tents. All in all it was a good hike and I hiked about 28 miles in the three days I was out hiking. The fabulous weather was superb and the near lack of bugs (except for the very few mosquitos who thought I was pretty damn tasty) was even better.

Duckabush River at Crazy Creek

Pitch Creek

Early Morning Fog

[silence]

thx for the cool tr and pix ha pitch creek lol .. this is where i slipped on a submerged rock while crossing, fell and broke my wrist a couple of yrs ago ... it was on our way out fm lacrosse basin .. it was late afternoon .. too late to make the last 13 mi to the trailhead b4 dark with a broken bone .. so we camped at 10 mi ... and walked out the next day .. i always thought the name of the creek was rather appropriate .. funny .. coincidentally when we were going in we talked with a hiker fm port townsend who said it was her 1st trip back since falling and breaking her leg while fording the duck .. it took her 3 days to get out .. in both cases we have no hard feelings .. we love the duck .. it is beautiful and wild (at least it was when we did it with numerous fords and many big trees to climb over -- a bit of a challenge then which made it kinda fun) ...

Pitch Creek

[reststep]

The Duckabush is a special place. Thanks for the report and pictures HJT. I don't know if it is the same stream but I was up there in early June in 2002 and remember one of those streams above 10 mile camp was just raging and decided my turn around point for me. I was up there again the next year in August and I was able to cross it without getting my feet wet. I like that campsite by the river. When I stayed there in 2003 I shared it with a trail crew.

[Dane]

An HJT report! He's officially out of retirement "Logs and River" and "Early Morning Fog"

[mgd]

Nice report! I guess I can't do my Where Is HJT poll now.

[Bryan K]

I was wondering where you've been lately! Good to see a report from you Great looking photos as usual