Hi everyone,
I’ve posted this to NWhikers.net but wanted to get this group’s thoughts as well. My buddies and I are planning a trip to Olympic National Park in late August and wanted to get some thoughts on our planned route. We are still early in the planning stages so any advice would be appreciated. Right now we are planning on starting at Graves Creek and hiking through Enchanted Valley to the Dosewallips River where we would head northwest to Hayes River and continue north to Dodger Point. From there we would head west along the ridge towards Ludden Peak and Mount Ferry and then eventually hitting Cream Lake and following Cream Lake Creek to the Hoh River where we would stay at Lewis Meadow. From Lewis Meadow we would packraft down the Hoh River all the way to the ocean at Ruby Beach. We have 8 days in the Park to do this.
The main areas I wanted to get advice on are: is the Hoh river runnable in late August on a packraft? We called the Ranger station and they said it should be but wanted to check b/c we know water will probably be low. The other main question is about the portion of the trip in the Bailey range where we cross country travel from Dodger Point to Lewis Meadow. Anything we should note about this route and how long do you think it would take to do this piece? Could it be done in a day?
As an FYI, all of us are in our late 20s and in good shape and have routinely done 15-20 mile days. We all have a lot of backpacking experience and some packrafting experience and cross country travel/navigation experience as well. Any advice would be appreciated!
