On my spring vacation back home to the Olympic Peninsula, I had the pleasure of going on a hike up the Elwha River with my friend and outdoor guide, Carolyn Wilcox of Experience Olympic Tours. I had many good childhood memories of hiking the Elwha with family and friends, and was excited to share it with my partner who grew up in the Midwest. Hiking an old familiar
trail with a knowledgeable guide was a real treat, and a new experience.
It was like seeing my home ground through a new set of eyes! It was a perfectly rainy day to take a hike (I cannot recommend day hikes in the rain highly enough), and March is just the right time of year to see a lot of wildlife in the Olympic river valleys. While I have had the good fortune to encounter a lot of wildlife on my outdoor excursions over the
years, I don’t always know where to go looking. It’s often by happenstance. With Carolyn, it felt like we were on an adventurous expedition with a rich, educational component.
trail with a knowledgeable guide was a real treat, and a new experience.
It was like seeing my home ground through a new set of eyes! It was a perfectly rainy day to take a hike (I cannot recommend day hikes in the rain highly enough), and March is just the right time of year to see a lot of wildlife in the Olympic river valleys. While I have had the good fortune to encounter a lot of wildlife on my outdoor excursions over the
years, I don’t always know where to go looking. It’s often by happenstance. With Carolyn, it felt like we were on an adventurous expedition with a rich, educational component.
My interest was especially piqued when Carolyn said we would look for bears. Being a person who seems to have many bear experiences in life, I was excited by the prospect of finding and watching them on our hike. Not far from the trailhead, we stopped to look down
at the old Anderson homestead meadow across the river, and learned that
this is a good place to view bears in the spring and fall, and that they
often make their winter bear beds on hillsides above such meadows. We
were a little too early for them to be out and about, but now I had an idea of where to
look for them.
at the old Anderson homestead meadow across the river, and learned that
this is a good place to view bears in the spring and fall, and that they
often make their winter bear beds on hillsides above such meadows. We
were a little too early for them to be out and about, but now I had an idea of where to
look for them.
With all the good trail conversation, time went quickly and it wasn’t long before we came to a familiar landmark from childhood hikes, Michael’s Cabin. Not long after, we passed some other hikers and rather than the obligatory and brief “hello” I exchange with folks I pass in the woods, Carolyn asked them if they had seen anything interesting. It had never occurred to me to gather information about wildlife or other things I might miss from other people rather than assuming I would find out for myself. They described a black and blue bird that sounded like a raven, which we ended up seeing not far down the trail. At the Humes Ranch cabin, we stopped to have lunch on the back porch overlooking the meadows. As we were sitting there eating, I was delighted to hear Carolyn say that this was the type of spot a bear would make their bed, in a high place overlooking a meadow.
After we looped back towards the river from the Humes Ranch Cabin, Carolyn spotted something on the opposite bank. She got out her spotting scope and we observed a group of American Dippers, an aquatic songbird, doing their dipping dance and diving in and out of the river. I had just seen one on our backpacking trip over the weekend, but hadn’t been able to get close enough to watch it diving.
We passed another group on the trail who reported seeing a pair of Canada Geese. As we looped back around near Anderson meadow, we saw the geese hanging out on the nearest shore, and Carolyn spotted a group of eight elk grazing across the river. We were the only ones out of all the hikers we passed to spot them!
When she got out the spotting scope, I was able to get an up close and personal view of the elk I had never really seen before and realized they were watching us as well! Their intent gaze really made me wonder what they thought about us.
We stopped by Goblin’s Gate where the river narrows into a rocky channel with rock faces that reminded early Anderson homesteaders of goblin faces. It was a beautiful stop before our ascent out of the river canyon and the hike out in the beautiful, drizzly forest.
I feel like I would be doing the world an injustice if I didn’t tell you a little bit about Carolyn and Experience Olympic Tours. I have decided that she has the coolest job in the world, and a lot to offer folks with what she is doing in the Olympics. Carolyn has been taking family and friends on unofficial guided tours for nearly a decade and began Experience Olympic Tours in 2012. I
asked her to tell me a little more about how Experience Olympic got
started, and her favorite things about her career. I thoroughly enjoyed
her response:
asked her to tell me a little more about how Experience Olympic got
started, and her favorite things about her career. I thoroughly enjoyed
her response:
“I had lived in Port Angeles
for 3 years and tried different
jobs and as with other small economically depressed towns, you
run out of
options fairly quickly. Yet,
I wanted to
live in Port Angeles – not
because my spouse was
born here or because I think it is going to be the next Bend, Oregon. Just like Goldilocks
porridge, I think Port
Angeles is just the
right size and most importantly it has excellent access to
Olympic National
Park. I love all my
city neighbors, even
the ones that tell me about their UFO sightings.
for 3 years and tried different
jobs and as with other small economically depressed towns, you
run out of
options fairly quickly. Yet,
I wanted to
live in Port Angeles – not
because my spouse was
born here or because I think it is going to be the next Bend, Oregon. Just like Goldilocks
porridge, I think Port
Angeles is just the
right size and most importantly it has excellent access to
Olympic National
Park. I love all my
city neighbors, even
the ones that tell me about their UFO sightings.
I grew up in suburban Ohio
and had a very happy childhood.
However,
once puberty hit, I was totally miserable.
I went to college in an economically depressed area in
Ohio and I was
kind of miserable there too until I happened upon a poster in
the Biology
Department (where I essentially lived those four years) that
advertised a
semester program organized by Round River Conservation
Studies. This was the
light bulb moment, the one that
ultimately led me to start Experience Olympic.
When studying with Round
River, I lived on the
Blue
River with six other
students between
the small towns of Alpine, Arizona
and Clifton,
Arizona
on wilderness that now home to Mexican Wolves.
We were like wolf ambassadors, there as annoying
Easterners and city
kids to stir up the local communities. I
backpacked, birded, and slept out under the stars (no tent)
for the first time
in my life.
and had a very happy childhood.
However,
once puberty hit, I was totally miserable.
I went to college in an economically depressed area in
Ohio and I was
kind of miserable there too until I happened upon a poster in
the Biology
Department (where I essentially lived those four years) that
advertised a
semester program organized by Round River Conservation
Studies. This was the
light bulb moment, the one that
ultimately led me to start Experience Olympic.
When studying with Round
River, I lived on the
Blue
River with six other
students between
the small towns of Alpine, Arizona
and Clifton,
Arizona
on wilderness that now home to Mexican Wolves.
We were like wolf ambassadors, there as annoying
Easterners and city
kids to stir up the local communities. I
backpacked, birded, and slept out under the stars (no tent)
for the first time
in my life.
When I returned for my senior year of
college in Ohio,
I was a bit like a
backwoods alley cat. I
ended up spending
lots of time at Ohio State University and felt more
comfortable around kids
with different color hair (blue was especially comforting to
me). I grew to love
the cemetery next to our
college – not the area with grave sites but some wooded areas
near the river
which would be populated with Palm Warblers during spring
migration. I would
take my camp chair out there and
pretend like I had never left the Blue River. I have been on a path to
try to be outside as
much as possible ever since. There
have
been some hard lessons along the way – I once got lost in the
Ozarks, I ended
up on backpacking trip where I stopped speaking to the Ironman
contenders on
the final day (and actually to this day), and I found myself
in the hospital
for a back injury from a faulty backpack but the doctors
couldn’t see past my
flu symptoms.
college in Ohio,
I was a bit like a
backwoods alley cat. I
ended up spending
lots of time at Ohio State University and felt more
comfortable around kids
with different color hair (blue was especially comforting to
me). I grew to love
the cemetery next to our
college – not the area with grave sites but some wooded areas
near the river
which would be populated with Palm Warblers during spring
migration. I would
take my camp chair out there and
pretend like I had never left the Blue River. I have been on a path to
try to be outside as
much as possible ever since. There
have
been some hard lessons along the way – I once got lost in the
Ozarks, I ended
up on backpacking trip where I stopped speaking to the Ironman
contenders on
the final day (and actually to this day), and I found myself
in the hospital
for a back injury from a faulty backpack but the doctors
couldn’t see past my
flu symptoms.
I want to introduce others to the joys of
experiencing the
outdoor world in a manner that they might not otherwise do
themselves. This could
be as simple as looking through a
spotting scope at an animal or bird you would have otherwise
never noticed or
as profound as going on the longest day hike of your life. There is no limit to
interpreting the natural
world – always more professional development opportunities
than there is
time. Some of the best
naturalists in
the world live on the Olympic Peninsula.
Thank goodness I am not yet 40 and have big plans and
hopefully still
time to learn and grow from their fine examples.”
experiencing the
outdoor world in a manner that they might not otherwise do
themselves. This could
be as simple as looking through a
spotting scope at an animal or bird you would have otherwise
never noticed or
as profound as going on the longest day hike of your life. There is no limit to
interpreting the natural
world – always more professional development opportunities
than there is
time. Some of the best
naturalists in
the world live on the Olympic Peninsula.
Thank goodness I am not yet 40 and have big plans and
hopefully still
time to learn and grow from their fine examples.”
And here is a link to more about Carolyn, outdoor guide extraordinaire:
This leads me to some other important and exciting news, the Elwha dam removal and Elwha River Restoration Project. This pioneering project got started in the fall of 2011, and currently the Elwha Dam is gone, over half of the Glines Canyon Dam is gone, both Lake Aldwell and Lake Mills are drained, and the Elwha is flowing unimpeded from it’s headwaters. The riparian restoration project is well underway and the Lower Elwha Hatchery where I did a summer internship during college, is working to restore salmon habitat and populations. These are exciting times on the North Olympic Peninsula, and worth a visit while this is all in progress.
Here is the Elwha River restoration page from the Olympic National Park: Elwha River Restoration.
Carolyn also offers tours of this, which I would highly recommend: Elwha Dam Removal Tours.
Lastly, I will share one more discovery I made on my travels, a little taste of the Elwha to take home. With a massive silt influx in the water as the dams come out, made up of all these rich minerals washed down from the Olympic Mountain peaks over the last hundred years, a local craft brewery, Twin Peaks Brewing and Malting Company made a very local beer celebrating the restoration project, Elwha Silt Pale Ale. “When the river runs clear, so will our beer.” You can find it on tap at their brewery and by the bottle at local stores like the Country Aire in downtown Port Angeles. For me, it fit in perfectly with the whole trip and was literally a taste of my home ground.
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