The next morning Shauna and I faced a bittersweet proposition. While the day promised to be every bit as spectacular as the last, we'd be experiencing whatever it held without Heather and Jeffery, who were leaving us for home. This sucked at so many levels. They had been cool travel partners, and they were veterans of the peninsula. They had proven a reservoir of ideas for the first couple days of our adventure, and I wondered how we would fare without them. We said goodbye to them after a particularly weak continental breakfast at the Super 8 (on what continent, I wonder, are hotel guests served only stale donuts and Sunny-D every morning? I digress.), and Shauna and I wasted little time hitting the 101 northbound.

We had only planned to spend a couple days on the eastern side of the peninsula, since most of our research had led us to believe that the northern, and western sides of the Olympics were where it was really at. After having experienced Lake Cushman, Shady Lane, Staircase Rapids and The Dosewallips, though, I didn't feel like leaving the area so unexplored.

Consulting a truly stellar terrain map (seriously, this thing is a hand drawn work of art) that we had picked up at a gas station in Brinnon, we decided to take a look at the Duckabush and Hamma Hamma recreation areas before moving too far north. We tried the Duckabush first, following a road that felt very similar to the one we had taken through The Dosewallips the day before. It tracked a narrow river valley wooded by young vine maple, Red Cedar and Doug Fir.

The road turned to gravel a few miles into the trip, and we continued on it for a few miles to the Murhut Falls trailhead. We glanced over a few books and decided it might be worth the 0.8 mile slog in to see it. The first several hundred yards of the path were a little steep, but it flattened out a bit after that. The final 300 yards of the trek were all downhill. We were in no particular hurry, but we seemed to be making exceptional time through the young second growth forest of Douglas Fir. No huffing, no puffing, no overheating. At first we chalked it up to just being excited about our surroundings, but later realized that we were only hiking at about 400 feet above sea level. We live at 4800 feet. Our lungs were swimming in oxygen here.


A young Forest of Douglas Fir.

Suddenly, the forest became very old as we neared the falls. Large Red Cedar and Douglas Fir competed for space on the steep slopes, and neon green moss grew thick on every surface. For some reason the logging crews had passed over this little ravine while completely wiping out the surrounding hillsides some 40 or 50 years ago. Perhaps they thought it would be too much trouble to remove the timber from these nearly vertical slopes. Or, maybe even they were moved by the beauty of the place, leaving it intact out of admiration.




Shauna at the bottom of the ravine.


Murhut Falls

We hung out there for a long time. Hours maybe (I'm not sure...time does strange things in the these big forests and we had left our watches and phones in the car), strolling through the big timber at the edge of the creek. Shauna especially seemed to want to linger. Maybe it was the sound of the tumbling water, or the rainbow of mist that floated from out of the ether, or the feeling of complete isolation, but the place felt different than anywhere we had ever been. Like a church. Or a cathedral. Shauna later confided that of all the places we had visited together, this was her single favorite.

Again, we left this place grudginlgy, wishing we could stay longer. But we wanted to see a little more of the Duckabush, and then the Hamma Hamma. So we returned to the trail. This is one place I expect we shall visit again.