On Saturday July 28, 2018 three friends (Lisa Fehr, Charlene Waldner and Karen Laberee) and I went over to Washington State and ran the Seven Lakes Basin in Olympic National Park. This is a 27 km loop from Sol Duc Hot Springs trailhead, up past Deer Lake to High Divide, then 10 km along High Divide, before dropping back down into the Sol Duc valley via Heart Lake and Bridge Creek.
Woke up ridiculously early to walk with Charlene and Lisa from Cook Street Village to the Coho ferry terminal on Belleville Street. We bought return walk-on tickets, went through immigration and on-board the ferry for the 6:10 am departure. The crossing took 90 minutes and this one was through dense fog, the ship's horn sounding every 2 minutes. We also ran into Andy, Elaine and Colleen who were doing the same run.
We arrived Port Angeles on-time. We walked off and picked up our rental car from Budget. They used to be located right across from the ferry terminal but had moved, leaving number to call for a ride on the door of the old location. Luckily their car garage is still there, so they drove us to the office a few blocks away. From here, it was a scenic one hour drive down state Highway 101, then along the beautiful Sol Duc Road. At the start of Sol Duc Rd we paid entry into the park (US$30) and 15 minutes driving later came to the trailhead at the end of the road.
We started our run at about 9:30 am. The first 1.2 km was on a wide well worn trail to the triple Sol Duc Falls. We crossed the bridge over the falls. This was where 95 percent of people from the trailhead turn back. After crossing the bridge we set off on a narrow trail and soon figured this was not really a trail. It's the type of trail we're used to running, but it wasn't a constructed trail. Turning back we found the correct trail climbed up the side of the mountain.
From here we switched back up the side of the mountain, following the course of a stream in the valley deep down below us. The trail was quite rocky but not terribly steep, so a pretty easy hike. A short distance up I decided to try my new carbon fiber trekking poles. Hearing good things from those that use them, I'd been resistant to buying poles, mostly from worry of not fuelling properly if my hands were not free. On these climbs I didn't find the poles made much difference, though they did help stabilize on some questionable sections.
As we climbed, three women ran past us, making me feel slow. I was quite happy when we passed them at Deer Lake and never saw them again. Deer Lake was a beautiful wooded lake. We ran around it and across peat boggy type meadows to the start of the climb to High Divide. Deer Lake was about half-way up, elevation-wise from Sol Duc to the start of High Divide.
Along this section we ran into a strange sight. A young man standing on a rock wearing a dress shirt with tails and no pants - just boxer shorts and shoes. His name was Andrew, or as we now call him "Pant-less Andrew". He claims United Airlines lost his luggage, so rather than sit in the hotel room, he decided to do his hike anyway. It was too hot for pants, so he took them off. Guess I have no room to talk. Years a go when I was a road runner and leading group runs from Frontrunners, I forgot to put my running shorts on and didn't notice until I got to the start of the run on the peninsula - so I ended leading a group run wearing just boxer shorts and running shirt. Anyway, Pant-less Andrew hiked up to High Divide with us. After taking a picture of us for us, I dragged the girls away from him and we started running the beautiful single track on High Divide. Pant-less Andrew couldn't keep up.
The trail crossed the ridge and followed the fall-line on the west-side. As we ran, the sun was hot, but we started to feel blast furnace winds as hot air raised up the alpine slopes from the Hoh Valley on our right. After gentle climbing for some distance, we came to the junction of High Divide and the trail down into Seven Lakes Basin.
We turned onto the Seven Lakes Basin trail, over some rather spectacular rocks and then once through them our first view of Seven Lakes Basin. We could see Lunch Lake and Round Lake down below us. We set off down the switch back rocky trail that led to Lunch Lake. I found the trekking poles useful on the down hill as I could use them to swing my legs over the top of many rocks and boulders. We soon arrived at the shore of Lunch Lake, a beautiful alpine lake with Bogachiel Peak behind it. Alpine meadows still with patches of snow surround the lake. We stopped here to cool our feet and filter water to refuel for the next part of our run.
We returned to High Divide the way we came (this is the only trail that connects Seven Lakes Basin with High Divide, so we had no choice). Once back at the junction the trail climbed steadily all the way to Hoh Trail Junction near the summit of Bogachiel Peak. We turned up an unofficial trail that led to the summit. There was some scrambling around rocks but we were soon on the square flat summit. From here we had 360 degree views. West to the White and Blue glaciers of Mount Olympus, east we could see all of the lakes in Seven Lakes Basin, and Mount Appleton and Appleton Pass, and thousands of mountains in all directions. Simply stunning.
We toasted our summiting of the peak (1730 metres) with Fireball. We were not as high as Mount Angeles (1950 metres) nor Klahannie Ridge (1800 metres) but the views and alpine environment were just as spectacular.
It was a hot day with temperatures around 25 degrees up there, and very little wind. We followed the built trail down that rejoined the High Divide Trail south of Bogachiel Peak and ran along High Divide heading south. After another climb we came to a small snow field just off the trail. We stopped here, dug down in the snow a few centimetres, and then filled our bottles and bladders with the snow. In the bottle it was like a slushie, ice cold water. The ice in the bladder felt great on my back and helped cool me during the run. It soon melted though.
We continued south along High Divide and came to the trail down to Heart Lake on our left. We could see the lake and it was shaped just like a heart. We continued along High Divide, intending to do an out and back to the entrance to Cat Basin. We got pretty much there before encountering a big black bear. The bear was just off the trail lying in the shade on a patch of snow. He or she was pretty chill and just looked at us as if to say "this is mine and I'm not moving". We turned around here and headed back to Heart Lake. I was at the back now so I had this image of a big bear breathing down my neck. I looked back often. This trail went thorugh some beautiful flower meadows, and their colours and smell was wonderful.
At Heart Lake we stopped to cool our feet and refill our water, using our water filters. I was out of water so I filled my bladder and bottle, about 2.5 litres of water. We spent 20 to 30 minutes here, enjoying the sun. Unlike Lunch Lake, which we had to ourselves, this one was quite busy with people swimming in their underwear or just relaxing in the sun.
From here, we followed the trail down following Bridge Creek and through Sol Duc Park (a meadow - all the meadows are called parks) then into the forest. The trail was very technical so was slow going, but the poles helped a lot. We crossed the creek in a few places by fording it, and the cold water felt so good on my feet and legs.
At the bottom, we crossed Sol Duc River on a bridge then the trail followed the river. We soon joined the Appleton Pass trail and continued down the Sol Duc river. I stopped several times along here to eat salmon berries, blue berries and huckleberries. At times the trail was steep, slow and frustrating, at other times it was smooth and beautiful soft fast single track to run. The last 6 km was a joy to run.
We were soon back at the Sol Duc falls and then the last 1.2 km on the well travelled tourist trail back to the car park. In all with stops, we spent 8 hours, 15 minutes on the trails, climbed about 1600 metres and covered 36 km. The loop was only 27km, we added distance with two out and backs.
Back at the car, we drove back to Port Angeles and arrived at Next Door Pub by 7:15pm. I dropped the car off at the Budget garage next to the ferry and walked over to the pub. They had really good food here, so I had two pints of local IPA and the Nutty Professor burger with an egg (that is beef, bacon, cheese, peanut butter and egg). You've got to remember, I've been fuelling on Tailwind energy drink all day, so I was starving and wanting something solid.
At 9:10 pm we left the pub and staggered over to the Coho Ferry Terminal, two blocks away, and boarded the ferry. We set sail at 9:30 pm. I had another beer on the ferry (IPA of course). Through customs in Victoria and then walked home and sleep by 12:30 am. A long but fun day of adventure running. A good training run for Brigade 50 miler in September.
I have no pictures due to accidently wiping my phone at the pub. Somehow I accidently hit a key combination that caused the phone to reset and wipe the flash drive. I only lost pictures I'd taken that day. Everything else, including contacts, logins, passwords were all backed up by Google, so the reinstall was simple and automatic.
Pictures can be seen in an album on Facebook setup by Lisa Fehr with contributions by Charlene Waldner and Karen Laberee.
Not sure if this link will work for everyone:
https://www.facebook.com/lisamfehr/media_set?set=a.10156938864230016&type=3
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