Enchanted Valley / ONP

Nice, I did that several years ago, on my list for a repeat

most likely place to see bears

This is my favorite PNW hike for wildlife viewing.

Per the rangers, the black bear and cubs in the video are used to people.  She was far enough away (I digitally zoomed in a fair amount) that she didn’t react or seem to care as we walked by.

When I was there I walked around a corner and there was a bear 50 feet away.  It stood up with paws on tree (to make it look larger?) and started huffing.  I walked backwards reversing my steps.  When I got several hundred feet away it got back down on ground and just watched me.

I sort of got the idea it was just screwing with me.  Fun to scare the humans.

A couple days later they closed the area to camping because the bear was getting too aggressive.  No humans or bears hurt.

It’s been 5-7 years since my last visit.   Back then you could use the bear wire in the valley.   After that trip, some people were behaving irresponsibly around the bears and they now require bear canisters in the valley itself.

We made a point to hike this midweek to avoid the holiday weekend crowds.   As we hiked out Friday morning, we must have encountered at least 50 hikers who were heading in.   Beautiful park but I’m sure it’s a three ring circus out there right now.

You even saw the rare grunting dougster!!

So much water…did you find quiet places to camp or were you pretty much by water all the time?

Beautiful area.

Kat,

The sound of water is ever present.   The trail in follows a river and there is one in the valley itself.   The sound wasn’t all that loud in our camps and offered some pleasant white noise without being so loud that you would have to yell to be heard over it.

Cool.  Those are some very black bears.  Ours are cinnamon.

I love sleeping to water noise, the louder the better!

If the water noise is too loud, that’s all you hear

I sometimes prefer to be far away from stream or ocean so you can hear far away sounds

until you start imagining there’s a dangerous creature approaching

I once ran my hammock between two trees, which spanned a bit of running water (it was connected to quite a fast moving creek/river). Slept like a baby! Well, a baby that was, you know, sleeping and everything, not fussing…

Sounds great Doug, I’ve always wanted to try that.

When I was 19 I crewed a catamaran in the Virgin Islands.  Slept on a hammock-like net over the water between the hulls.  Some of the best sleep of my life, shirtless and didn’t even need blankets.  Breeze above, water below…on some nights the phytoplankton would come in and create luminescent water….Magic times.

Who is the skinny old guy in they grey shirt? He looks healthy and fit.

Nicely done, gentlemen.  ONP is pure magic when the weather cooperates.

” Slept like a baby! Well, a baby that was, you know, sleeping and everything, not fussing…”

ha, ha, ha,…

A long time ago I worked with a collective that contracted with the park service to perform trail repair and clearing. We did extensive trail repair on this trail starting about 15 miles in. the park service provided a chopper to bring in our heavy hand tools (no machinery allowed). Our crew drew straws to see who got to ride up on the chopper. I lost and three of us headed out for the hike in to camp, which ended in darkness. In the morning we were at the rendezvous point but assumed the chopper was grounded due to a low ceiling and rain. But it simply flew up the river under the clouds and then hovered over us as we tried to unclip the netting that held our tools from under the chopper. I remember looking up and seeing Tom in the chopper looking terrified–it was a many hundred foot plunge down cliffs into the river where we were gathered.The misting air caused us to get shocked every time we touched the netting and tried to unclip but eventually it worked. I’d spent part of the day with the pilot two days earlier–he flew in Viet Nam and nothing fazed him apparently.

anyway this is a truly beautiful area. As it turned out it rained the entire week we were working–not so good.

Thanks for the video! I need to go back there. I don’t recall anyone hiking through the week we worked that trail.