<< Good Sand and Good Tides

02/20/16 - Sol Duc Falls and Beyond

With Olympic Hot Springs Road closed, we haven’t managed to take any of the trails out of Whiskey Bend or visit the hot springs themselves lately. Instead we drove west past Lake Crescent and took the left turn at the top of the hill onto Sol Duc Road. The resort is closed, but the trail to the falls is open and free of snow.

The trail heads through old growth rain forest and in about 20-30 minutes gets one to the spectacular Sol Duc Falls. With the recent rains the falls were roaring and the bridge covered with spray. We continued on the far side of the river and headed up the canyon towards the little bridge over Canyon Creek. It was a wet, rocky trail and arduous.

We climbed maybe 500 feet to the crossing, but this trail is noted for its high rocky steps, stony pathways and lots of running water. We made it a bit of the way past the bridge over the creek towards Deer Lake but soon ran into snow on the trail. We really weren’t up to dealing with that, so we called it a hike and headed back down. Deer Lake, another 1100 feet up towards the high country will have to wait.

Rain forest

One of the minor water features

Sol Duc Falls

The falls seen from the far side

One of the little side falls

One of the many trickles of water keeping the trail from drying out

A boardwalk, not all that far from the bridge over Canyon Creek

Some rocky steps, not at all atypical

Canyon Creek

Melting snow feeding one of the side streams of Canyon Creek

The view across the Sol Duc Valley

Keywords: sol duc, trails, deer lake