Olympic Hot Springs

My pal Nicole and I were overdue for a daylong adventure. This was coming 4 days after my birthday, and I was hoping to do somethign a little epic. When we set out on the trail, getting to the hotsprings themselves was something aspirational. The joy was the hike… if we made it there… that’s icing. (The hike is about 24 miles roundtrip).

Olympic Hot Springs is accessed via an abandoned road which used to take visitors within an easy 2 ish mile hike of the hot springs. That road was permanently closed with several washouts a decade or so ago. As it stands, most the that hike (about 10 miles each way) is a very easily navigated paved road, albeit with some steady gane and, let’s face it, after 24 miles you are going to feel it!

Most people turn around at the remnants of the dam on the Elwa. This is a cool in-and-of-itself. One of the things I love about my kids growing up in the PNW is learning about ecology, in this case : Salmon restoration, and here Nicole and I were : seeing where real change had occured!

After the dam, the climb is steady, but, again, paved road. On that road we jockeyed with a pair of women on bikes (many people use bikes on the road), however, these two were having some trouble with a bike chain, which we were able to help rectify.

About a mile shy of the hot springs, you can smell the sulfur hanging in the air.

The springs themselves are a motley assortment of pools, some hot, some cool… muddy, clear… regardless : you don’t want to get in with an open wound! (I don’t want to know the bateria levels, let’s just put a mental pin in that question).