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Seeking a guide for Olympic NP for Mid-May


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Home Forums Campfire Trip Planning Seeking a guide for Olympic NP for Mid-May

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  • #1301399
    obx hiker
    BPL Member

    @obxer

    My wife and 4 good friends gather once a year and day hike in a National Park. They are in all in their early 50s, fit,fun and fairly adventurous. Lately they've been to Glacier and Yosemite and hired guides. This works well for planning, monitoring weather and solid local advice that they see some good stuff since they usually only have 3 or 4 days. Please respond if you know a good guide in the area. They've rented a house in Port Angles for May 16 – 20.

    #1973669
    Jerry Adams
    BPL Member

    @retiredjerry

    Locale: Oregon and Washington

    Drive to Ozette and do Sand Point/Cape Alava loop 9 miles and walk further North or South if you want. Or if you're at high tide, you can just do either and walk along the beach but it may be difficult to go all the way between Sand Point and Cape Alava.

    Probably too much snow to hike at Hurricane Ridge – trail to Mt Angeles would be good.

    Take ferry to Victoria if you're into that.

    #1973711
    Ozzy McKinney
    Spectator

    @porcupinephobia

    Locale: PNW

    You will probably have a lot more luck on nwhikers.net- I lot of Oly locals over there.

    #1973733
    Dale Wambaugh
    BPL Member

    @dwambaugh

    Locale: Pacific Northwest

    +1 on the Cape Alava Trail. No guide really needed. it's just a 3 mile low roller-coaster walk to the beach. Great seascapes and wildlife out there.

    The Hoh River Trail would make another good day hike and it doesn't require a guide. The roads and trailhead access are all well marked.

    The drive up to Hurricane Ridge immediately above Port Angeles is a good day trip.

    Keep in mind that mid May might be too early for anything at higher altitude.

    +1 on nwhikers.net for solid trail reports.

    #1974032
    obx hiker
    BPL Member

    @obxer

    Thanks All, for the tips on hikes. I had broken it down into 3 main hike "types"
    . River Valley/rainforest
    . Beach
    . Mountain/Alpine Ridge with views.

    And there are multiple examples of the firat 2 as possible fall-back choices

    The Hoh valley looks like the iconic hike for the rainforest/ valley and that Alava beach hike out by Ozette looks like a great beach/shoreline type hike.

    The trickier type…..very iffy……..is the hike getting maybe above tree-line or on a ridgeline somewhere that has views that 3rd week in May.

    I've done a lot of reading about all the higher ridges around that northeastern corner towards the rain shadow and they still get plenty of snow up higher and pretty dicey that it might be melted enough.

    The girlfriends like having a guide because they can just forget about the smaller details.

    I also made a request on NWhikers but so far no reply.

    #1974038
    BlackHatGuy
    Spectator

    @sleeping

    Locale: The Cascades

    Interesting, when I googled it, there don't seem to be many hiking guides – unless you want to hunt.

    A few kayaking guides though, have you thought of that kind of trip? Sounds pretty wonderful from the descriptions and photos.

    I did find this one though: http://www.justroughinit.com/olympic/

    #1974051
    j lan
    Member

    @justaddfuel

    Locale: MN

    It's illegal to accept money to guide in the Olympic National park. I know some people who might be able to help you though. PM me.

    #1974061
    Herbert Sitz
    BPL Member

    @hes

    Locale: Pacific NW

    The top four books in this search are all guidebooks for Olympic hiking:
    Olympic guidebooks at Amazon
    The third one by Craig Romano would probably be my pick; I have a few other Washington hiking books by him that are really good. The Washington Trails website is helpful too. Here's link to their hike listings for Olympics:
    LINK (not embeddable for some reason): http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/hike_search?title=&region=922e688d784aa95dfb80047d2d79dcf6&subregion=all&rating=0&mileage%3Aint=0&elevationgain%3Aint=0&highpoint=&searchabletext=&sort=&show_adv=0&filter=Search

    The WTA site includes the Craig Romano writeups from his Olympic guidebook (for hikes that he has in that book) plus you get trip reports from other people. You can review trip reports for hikes in May of previous years to get an idea for whether one will be doable for you.

    The Trails Illustrated map is also good resource:
    Trails Illustrated ONP map
    Although you can download less detailed ones from NPS website:
    ONP Maps

    You can also get hiking info from rangers at any of the Wilderness Information Centers. The main one at Port Angeles/Hurricane Ridge also sells all the books and maps listed above, I think. But call them for more info; they'll be helpful:
    ONP Wilderness Info Centers

    As Ozzy and Dale W. already said, nwhikers.net is excellent resource. May stands good chance of being cool and rainy, especially on west side of park. Snow could be issue precluding many hikes, but the river hikes on west side of park should be good. Hoh River is always good, and I would personally suggest doing a day hike partway up the Enchanted Valley Trail down near Lake Quinault in southwestern corner of park. Quinault Lodge near there is part of NPS and there's a Wilderness Info Center a few steps away, which might(?) be open in May. Also, the hike up the Elwha River (right outside Port Angeles) will be easily doable in May (can do it almost year round); I did that towards end of May last year).

    Also, not sure why someone said paid guides are illegal in ONP. Here's link to a commercial guide's site that provides guides for "groups of eight or more".:
    Guide for ONP
    I know of another outfit that does guided multi-night backpacking expeditions in ONP.

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