Backpacking the West Dosewallips River to Honeymoon Meadows, Olympic National Park

We wanted a weekend backpack trip to do with our grown sons, so we decided to drag our decrepit, middle-aged bodies up the West Fork of the Dosewallips River on the east side of the Olympic Mountains. We had three days of perfect weather - daytime temps in the high 70's, nights in the high 50's, and sunshine every day.

We rendezvoused with the young'uns at Dosewallips State Park on a Thursday evening. The park is situated on the edge of Hood Canal, and has a popular clamming beach. We did not do any clamming, but the park had the luxury of hot showers the next morning before hitting the trail. The park is great, and has some fairly isolated campsites in the woods in addition to the many sites in an open field. We chose a fairly secluded site (122) where we saw some of the native herd of elk about 50 feet behind the site as we were setting up our tents.

Next morning we had our hot showers and a breakfast of coffee and oatmeal before piling in the car to drive to the trailhead. To get there, you drive about 9 miles up a paved road, then a dirt road, until the road is blocked and there are many cars parked along the edges. We added our cars to the herd, and then shouldered our packs at about 10 a.m. to begin the hike.

The first 6.5 miles of the trail are up a gradual incline along an old road that got washed out just past the car park. It was easy hiking side-by-side for most of the way, with only a short scramble of about 100 yards to get around a washed-out area of the road. It was gentle, easy hiking along the road, sometimes with the river along side of us, although you end up gaining about 1200 feet by the time you reach the turnoff where the trail leads up the West Fork of the river. Eventually the road steepened a bit as we neared a large waterfall with about a 100-foot drop. Just before the falls is a large cliff of pillow basalts, which were extruded on the ocean bottom as lava tubes much like toothpaste coming out of a tube. The stack of extruded basalt ends up looking like a stack of pillows. The ranger station and abandoned Dosewallips campground - formerly a drive-in camp at the end of the now-closed road - was not much farther up the road.

At the ranger station the road ended and the trail began, as did the uphill grind. After 1.5 miles, we took the trail to the left and reached the Dose Forks wilderness campsite and a bridge across the Dosewallips. There is a pit toilet here for those hardy enough to bear it - maybe use a clothespin on your nose?

We crossed the bridge and then 0.6 miles later we crossed the West Fork of the river on an impressive bridge that is probably 60 or 80 feet above the river. The bridge had large steel beams beneath the decking, leaving us wondering how they got the beams to the site. Presumably a large helicopter.

After crossing the river it was about a five mile hike, mostly uphill, to our camp at Diamond Meadows. The trail seemed to be through old-growth forest given the size of the trees. We had already hiked 8.5 miles by the time we crossed the river, and the uphill grind for a couple miles after the bridge to Big Timber camp really wore us out. We passed Big Timber campsite, which looked OK in the grove of large trees. We pushed on to Diamond Meadows camp, though, so that we would be closer to Anderson pass the next day. We were exhausted when we arrived after 13 miles of hiking. It would have been smarter to stay at Big Timber, although we liked Diamond Meadows camp better and it made the next day's hike much shorter.

We would not have tried the 13-mile hike except that the first 6.5 miles is along a relatively smooth road with only a gentle slope, but we nonetheless felt a wee bit tired(!) when we arrived at camp.

We set up camp at about 5 p.m. after 7 hours of hiking. The West Fork of the Dosewallips was not easily accessible from the camp, but there is a small stream nearby that we used as a water source. The campsite was nice, with lots of level ground for pitching the tents within the huge trees. There was a bear wire, which made us wonder why we lugged a pair of two-pound bear cans 2200 vertical feet to the camp. Better safe than sorry, I guess.

Dinner consisted of packs of freeze-dried food that we had picked up at REI. We hadn't had freeze-dried food for years, and they were amazingly good. My wife and I split one of the two-serving packs, but our young men quickly ate a two-serving pack each and then broke out the peanut butter and tortillas for some additional food. Fortunately our pack-horse son had carried 4 beers to camp (bless his heart!) so we actually got to have slightly warm beer with our dinners 13 miles and a long uphill climb from the nearest road!

Next day we had thought about hiking to Anderson Pass, four miles and 1700 feet above us, but instead stopped at Honeymoon Meadows at two miles and 900 feet up. The trail climbed steadily next to the river, with views of the river and occasionally of the surrounding mountains.

There was a nice-looking camp at Honeymoon Meadows, and a few hundred yards past the camp the trail fords the river, which is still surprisingly wide at this elevation. About a hundred feet farther and the trail reached the actual meadow.

The meadow itself was glorious, with views of Mount Anderson and down the valley. It would have been a great place to watch the sunset. Some other hikers told us they saw bears in the area, which are apparently common here, but we did not see any. Wildflowers were sparse on this mid-July weekend, but the meadow certainly looks like it could have some at the right time of year.

We returned to camp that evening after the relatively easy, four-mile round trip to Honeymoon Meadows. It was a relaxing night at the camp with our sons. Amazingly, the mosquitoes were not bad and were easily kept under control with a little repellent, which is different than the intense swarms we had encountered the week before near Mount Rainier.

The next day was a grueling, though mostly downhill, hike out to the cars. We were absolutely exhausted when we reached the cars at about 5 p.m. We had a nice dinner at Elmer's in Poulsbo (great restaurant with great decor!!) before taking the Bainbridge ferry back to Seattle.

It would have been great to camp at Honeymoon Meadows, but there is no way we could have reached it in one day. A group of young women we leap-frogged with along the trail were planning to hike all the way to Honeymoon Meadows in one day, but they gave up and also camped at Diamond Meadows. If we had another day, I would have camped at Big Timber the first night, at Honeymoon Meadows the second and third nights, with a day hike to Anderson pass and glacier, and back to Big Timber or Dose Forks for the 4th night before hiking out.

Another alternative would be to bring bikes for the first 6.5 miles along the road. The bikes would have to be carried around the washed-out part of the road, but it would have shortened the hiking by a couple of hours at the beginning and end of the hike. This might have allowed for a 1-day hike to Honeymoon Meadows, although it still would not be an easy day. I assume the bikes could be locked somewhere near the ranger station, but you'd need to check with the rangers before doing this.

We were limping for a couple of days afterward, as our mid-60s-year-old bodies were pretty spent by the end of the hike. The young'uns fared better, but were also nonetheless sore and worn out from the trek. It was a rough but rewarding three days of hiking!