[Double_E]

Decided to take advantage of late summer low stream flows to do the Elwha -> Remann’s cabin ford -> Dodger Point loop I’d been wanting to do. The trail conditions page on the park website said the ford was “manageagle” so I figured it was time to hit it. The first day, I hiked the ~11 miles from Whiskey Bend up to Elkhorn. Good lord the Elwha valley is gorgeous; srsly one of my favorite parts of Cascadia. I'd been up to Lillian Camp in recent history, but hadn't been beyond that in the Elwha since I did the NF Quinault to Whiskey Bend through-hike in the mid 90s. All told, only saw 9 people over the 11 miles to get to Elkhorn.

Cool little bridge, Elwha River trail

Elwha River, about a mile north of Mary's Falls camp

Elwha River, about a mile north of Mary's Falls camp

Elwha River, Canyon camp

Elwha River trail

Elkhorn camp

Elkhorn ranger cabin

Elkhorn shelter

Elkhorn "barn"

Sign at Elkhorn barn... amazing that they actually have to post this stuff, 11 miles in

Elwha River at Elkhorn camp

Elkhorn camp

Elkhorn camp

Elwha River, Elkhorn camp

Second day, I got up early and hiked the 1.5 mile to the ford and Remann’s cabin. Roughly 30 or 40 yards past the cabin is the trail intersection, with the sign pointing to Dodger Point with the mileage. I went down to the river right there, put down the backpack and put on the Tevas, and did few trial crossings to the mid-point of the river to find the best place to cross, and finally found a suitable spot. It was almost up to my waist (did it in my boxers, and the lower half of 'em got wet) but fairly slow moving. Without trekking poles, it might have been kinda sketchy. The river was low enough that falling in wouldn’t have carried me downstream, but, would’ve obviously sucked getting everything wet and all. On the other side of the river it was hard to find the trail for a while; on the east side there was a tree with a big orange marker on it, about 10 feet up, but there didn’t seem to be anything similar on the west side. As I’d recently read about this section, the trail was reeaally hard to find/follow. After about 45 minutes of bushwacking, following what seemed to be a trail but were probably deer/elk trails, I finally found the real trail, which was marked by little orange markers up in trees. Part of me wanted to retrace it back to the river and put up some flagging there (or at least see if there *was* a marker there) but a bigger part of me wanted to just keep going.

Mass of mossy maples

Elwha River

Elwha River, just before getting to Remann's cabin

Remann's cabin

Remann's cabin

Ford at Remann's cabin ... was deeper than it looks here; almost waist deep!

So I started the steep slog up the ~6 miles to Dodger Point. Didn’t see a single person on this stretch. Unlike the Elwha trail and the Long Ridge trail, this section had a lot of trees over the trail, but most were very easy to cross. At about 4000-4500 ft (?) elevation, it crosses a few meadows, in which the trail got very faint/dispersed. In most of these the trail on the other side was easy to find cause of flagging people had placed; one of them didn’t have flagging so it took a while but after finding the trail I left some flagging for future parties to see. Eventually got up to Dodger Point, checked out the fire lookout cabin on top. It’s currently being renovated by the NPS, so no entry permitted.

Primitive trail from Elwha to Dodger Point

Primitive trail from Elwha to Dodger Point

Tiny pond, near the intersection with the waytrail to Ludden Peak

Dodger Point fire lookout cabin

Mt. Olympus from Dodger Point

Mt. Olympus and Bailey Range, from Dodger Point

Black bear, just north of Dodger Point

Stephen Peak (?) and lovely fall colors

Just after leaving the cabin to head back down, I passed a hiker who’d just come up the Long Ridge trail, and asked him whether he’d seen the Dodger Pt camp was and what it was like. He said the official Dodger Pt site was pretty crowded with the NPS cabin renovation work crew, but said that a little further down the trail were two small ponds at about 5K elevation which would be a cool place to camp. So I took his advice and headed for them. As far as I could tell there wasn’t any type of trail down to the two small unnamed ponds; but at/around them, there were several trails and a couple of camp spots that had obviously been used several times before. Parts of this area should probably be closed down for revegetation. Despite how fairly marshy these ponds were, I didn’t see/feel a single mosquito here; maybe too late in the season for them? The spot I camped at had great views of the Dodger Pt ridge directly from camp, and, just a 20 foot walk through the trees, a view of the Strait of JdF and Vancouver Island.

Tiny ponds about a mile north of Dodger Point on the Long Ridge trail; the wider gap in the trees towards the left is roughly where I camped

View of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, from near camp

View of Dodger Point's ridge, from camp

The last day, I hiked the fairly unremarkable Long Ridge trail back to Humes Ranch. There were tiny streams at about 3900 ft and 4400 ft elevation, and from about 3900 to 4100 there were a few places where if you went upslope or downslope fro the trail you could probably find a flat enough spot to camp if you wanted.

Mt. Olympus, from Long Ridge trail

Stephen Peak (?), from Long Ridge trail

Very loud and agitated squirrel, Long Ridge trail

Elwha River canyon bridge

Elwha River canyon, from bridge

Elwha River from near the canyon bridge, looking to Humes Ranch area

[meck]

Very cool Double_E, I really want to give that primitive-trail a try. After fording did you note if there was any better looking crossing location, or were you pretty much directly in front of the cabin?

[Double_E]

Original post finally updated with more info and pics.

[RodF]

Thanks for sharing your pics, Double_E! Dodger LO sure looks great, buttoned down for winter. p.s. your pic of Elkhorn RS shows the ends of the sill and lower two logs replaced last year, when the entire floor was removed, its stringers and other sills were replaced, and floor reinstalled. Another save for the next generation. Now we just need a trail linking them that can be found!