Staircase-Lacrosse-Graves Cr 8/30/21 10:25:32 AM

We did a 5-night backpack, starting at Staircase, ascending the North Fork Skokomish, crossing First Divide, ascending the Upper Duckabush to Lacrosse Basin, crossing O'Neil Pass and descending to the E. Fork Quinault, climbing Anderson Pass to Anderson Moraine, and then descending the E. Fork Quinault through Enchanted Valley to Graves Creek trailhead. We hiked a total of about 57 miles, including 4 miles of wandering Lacrosse Basin. All of the stream crossings were easy rock-hops. We had excellent weather, saw more bears than bugs, ate loads of huckleberries, and saw some of Olympic NP's finest scenery.

Day 1: Left Staircase trailhead at 10:30 a.m. and walked 11.2 miles to Two Bear Camp. The trail was in good shape until a bit past Camp Pleasant, and then we encountered a number of blowdowns, some pretty big, but nothing too hard to get past. Two Bear is a nondescript camp in the forest about 1000 ft below First Divide. There's no privy or bear wire. One other person was camped there.

Day 2: Hiked about 8 miles from Two Bear to Hart Lake in Lacrosse Basin. There were a few big blowdowns between First Divide and the Duckabush, and a few more from there up to Marmot Lake. Again, nothing serious. We reached Hart Lake around 3:30 and were the first to make camp there that day. We found a nice site at the south end of the lake. A few more parties arrived later. There's a bear wire at the lake, but it's not functional. There's no privy. We spent the evening watching two bears work the steep mountain slope across the lake, snarfing up berries.

Day 3: We remained camped at Hart Lake and spent the day exploring Lacrosse Basin, hiking to Lacrosse Lake and then north above the lake to Ranger Pass, from which there's a great view of Mt. Anderson to the north and Mt. Steel and Mt. Duckabush to the south. Along the way, we saw many bears, all focused on the berries. A few gave us the stink-eye if we seemed too close, but they were generally unperturbed by our presence. We made like the bears and ate a lot of berries ourselves. After we got back to camp and had dinner, we took an evening stroll on a rough boot path to the top of the ridge above the south end of Hart Lake, from which the views were dazzling.

Day 4: This was the most demanding day. We hiked 13 miles, from Hart Lake back down past Marmot Lake (where we saw a couple more bears) and over O'Neil Pass, then down the long O'Neil Pass Trail to the E. Fork Quinault Trail, up 1100 ft to Anderson Pass, then up another 700 ft to the Anderson Moraine. Between O'Neil Pass and the White River, the trail was very brushy, with failing tread on some scree slopes, and was blocked by several big blowdowns and many smaller ones. In terms of condition, it was the worst stretch of trail on the trip, but the views along it were fine. We met a backcountry ranger who checked our permit. The switchbacks up to Anderson Pass were mostly shadeless, and in the afternoon sun the climb felt tough. The primitive trail from Anderson Pass to Anderson Moraine wasn't as bad as we'd expected, though. It's pretty brushy in places, but there weren't many blowdowns and the grade wasn't too steep in most places. We made camp around 6 p.m. at a shallow tarn just below the top of the moraine. The views of Mt. Anderson from the moraine were spectacular, and made the day's hike well worth it. At our camp, we took our drinking water from the tadpole-filled tarn, and took note of the many bear tracks and piles of fresh bear scat all around.

Day 5: We had an easy half-day of hiking, only 5.2 miles, from Anderson Moraine down to Enchanted Valley. There were a few blowdowns on the way. We had planned on camping a few miles farther down the trail, at Pyrite's Creek, but decided that the Enchanted Valley was too nice to pass up. It's a broad, flat area with many tent sites, and we found ours in a nice grove of cedars. As the afternoon progressed, we saw a steady stream of backpackers arrive and make camp. We didn't feel crowded though, because there was lots of room for people to spread out. There are even two latrines. The chalet remains standing, but the river channel is edging its way closer and the building's long-term prospects don't look good.

Day 6: We hiked 13.5 miles down the E. Fork Quinault to Graves Creek Trailhead through some of the most beautiful rainforest you could ever hope to see: giant Sitka spruce, Doug fir, and western redcedar, along with moss-draped bigleaf maple growing in open park-like groves. But we weren't alone on the trail. We probably passed more than 130 backpackers headed in to the valley for the Labor Day weekend. We met another ranger who checked our permit. The parking at the trailhead was jammed. After a week of fine weather, it started raining just after we got in our car.