21 September 2015, Monday

None of us slept very well last night. The Inn was fine – but our
neighbor was a mom with two children. The mom could have used some
parenting classes. She spent much of the evening screaming at the
kids. Interestingly, we did not hear the children at all.
Nonetheless, we are up at 6 for final showers before breakfast at 7.

It takes awhile to get organized at the trailhead, but we are on the
trail by 10. The first couple of miles go quite smoothly. Then we
begin to gain elevation as we first go up and over Little Hump, and
then begin to climb Big Hump, where the trail climbs steeply for 1500
feet as the Duckabush Gorge becomes more sheer. We stop for “first
lunch” at a beautiful viewpoint. I think we are nearing the top of
Big Hump – wrong!  We continue going up. As the elevation rises, so
does the difficulty of the trail, which passes through an old burn area.
There was a fire here in 2011. There are numerous burned trees and
many blowdowns blocking our path. These blowdowns are not small
trees. Some of the trunks are chest high. We climb over, we duck
under, we take packs off and crawl under in a few places. Progress is
slow.

We have second lunch two hours after first lunch at Five Mile Camp. It
takes us 5 hours to reach this point. The trail description I had
read urged the reader not to camp at Five mile due to unstable trees.
We had planned to go on to Ten mile camp anyway. The description also said
the trail becomes easier once one crosses into Olympic National Park
from Four Brothers Wilderness at mile 6.7.

We are all hoping the trail will agree with the description, but the
blow downs continue. Just as the downed trees become less common and our pace is picking up, we are slowed again by a herd of elk.
S sees them first, after noting fresh tracks
for some time. At first we think there are three to four elk, but as we follow
the trail, we can see an entire herd, including calves. We can hear
bugles. We can even smell the elk. The forest smells like a dairy
herd has been through. Eventully the elk disappear up the mountain, and we are again able to pick up our pace. We finally arrive at
Ten mile Camp at 6:45 pm. By the time we set up camp and cook dinner
it is quite dark, darker than usual in the woods, due to the
immensely tall trees. Sure makes one feel small! We fall asleep
quickly listening to the roar of the Duckabush as it tumbles down the
gorge.