For more on Lake Crescent, see our Spruce Railroad Trail and Barnes Creek web pages.
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We seem to post a picture of this tree every year. It's at the Devil's Punchbowl, a popular swimming spot.

11/04/08 - Lake Crescent

The Spruce Railroad Trail along the north shore of Lake Crescent is a gentle place. The hike is always calming. Lately we've been watching for signs of autumn, and for a while the changes have been subtle. This last hike, though, fall is breaking out in earnest. We don't get the fiery colors of a New England fall, but we do get some great golden maples.

Some autumn color

One of the things we like about the northwest is that things are always growing out of other things.

Keywords: autumn, lake crescent, spruce railroad

09/26/08 - The Adventure Trail

We've mentioned the Adventure Trail before. It runs from the start of the Lyre River at Lake Crescent and follows an old railroad grade for much of the way before meeting up with the Olympic Discovery Trail. We finally explored a bit of it, and it looks like a great bicycling trail. We walked, following the Lyre River. The river itself is only visible now and then. The trail runs along the valley wall, at least as far as we went. We didn't get very far, but we do plan a return visit. Maybe we'll get to Piedmont Road.

The trail itself

Rocks and ferns

The clear cut in dramatic light

Keywords: trails, lake crescent

06/13/08 - Flowers At Lake Crescent

Winter lingered a lot longer than we had hoped this year, so we've been desperately looking for signs of spring. Well, we've found some. For example, we have several nearly ripe strawberries in our yard. If anything, they're a bit early. On the Spruce Railroad Trail today, the roses were out along with a few other flowers that we should recognize by name, but didn't. For your enjoyment, here are a few pictures.



Keywords: flowers, spring, spruce railroad, lake crescent

04/25/08 - Triliums

Each time we have visited the Spruce Railroad Trail at Lake Crescent we have kept our eyes open for signs of spring. Spring has been late in coming. The skunk cabbage didn't even appear until April, but then we saw the first Indian paintbrush and the first few salamanders. This time the trilliums were out. There aren't many leaves on the alders, but we are finally seeing some signs of spring.



Keywords: lake crescent, salamander, spring, spruce railroad, trillium

04/14/08 - Signs Of Spring - Hope (For Spring) Springs Eternal

We have been rather desperate for signs of spring. Even in mid-April the temperature still drops into the 30s nightly, and there is fresh snow on the mountains. The landscape at Lake Crescent was barren, but we did see two local salamanders, undersized, but healthy as they basked on the muddy trail. To our surprise, there was some Indian paintbrush blooming on the descent just east of the bridge at the Devil's Punchbowl.

This is rather pathetic for this time of year, but we will take what we can get. Two salamanders and a few feeble flowers aren't much. The thaw has barely started, and the lake water is low. Still, there are some signs of progress.



Keywords: flowers, lake crescent, salamander, spring


No scent yet

04/01/08 - The Skunk Cabbage Cometh, Finally

As part of The Kaleberg Signs of Spring, Finally, series, we offer our picture of the first skunk cabbage in the bogs at the eastern end of the Spruce Railroad trail at Lake Crescent. This is definitely skunk cabbage, so something is brewing, but spring is definitely behind schedule.

Keywords: lake crescent, spring, spruce railroad, kale

03/02/08 - Lake Crescent Rainbow

This little rainbow was visible during a rain squall at Lake Crescent. You can really see the bright colors and the relative brightness of the region under the arc.

Keywords: atmosphere, lake crescent

01/13/08 - Return of the Special Surprise Waterfall

It's a little hard to see in this picture, but our special surprise waterfall at Lake Crescent is back. It's about three miles from the East Beach Road trailhead, in the rocky area near the point. If you look up, you can see the little falls. It isn't quite as wet as 2006 when we last saw it. The water vanishes underground, so you can walk by it dryshod.

Keywords: lake crescent, surprise waterfall, kale, waterfall

11/19/07 - A Visit to the Spruce Railroad Trail

There was a big windstorm last week. We were lucky and got by with a fifteen minute power outage followed by a six hour DSL outage. West of Port Angeles power was out for days, and even some people in town had to wait days for the lights to come back on. The PUD, and the town electrical people, were running ragged. Trees were down all over the place, and the roads were a mess.

Even now, the park is still digging out. Hurricane Ridge Road is still closed, largely due to downed trees. We decided to take one of the more accessible trails at Lake Crescent, so we set out for the Spruce Railroad Trail along the north side of the lake. We didn't get far before our first obstacle. There was a big tree with lots of branches down across the trail (see the photo below). This did not bode well. We figured that we'd be clambering under and over tree trunks the entire walk, but we figured wrong. We actually made it three miles down the trail, to the "point", as we call it, and there were four, maybe five, trees down across the trail in all.

For our efforts, we were rewarded with the silvery lake, and some fantastic views of the mountains to the south. You can see the river clouds hanging over the Barnes Creek Valley in the photo to the right. There was a touch of snow on Storm King, but no solid snow line. There were lots of downed branches, and that gave us a wonderful opportunity. Rain forest trees, especially the big old maples, are covered with lichens, moss, Spanish moss, little ferns and the like, but these can be hard to see except rather low on the tree. There's just an overall impression of life and green-ness. With all the branches down, we got a better view. Below and to the right, there's a photo of a rather common lichen. It looks like a bunch of leaves, but the back is white. The algae get the sunny side and the funghi get the shady side, and they do very nicely together.

Clouds over the valley

This is the worst of the four or five trees across the trail

It looks like leaves, but it's windfall lichen

Keywords: lake crescent, spruce railroad, storm king, trails, barnes creek

10/25/07 - Lake Crescent Mist

There is nothing like the morning mist on a mountain lake. The winds were calm, and Lake Crescent was placid. We were on the Spruce Railroad Trail, and this mist emphasized the quiet of the day. As we walked west the mist thickened and rose. Less than an hour later, near the end of our trail, the mist had evanesced.

Keywords: lake crescent, spruce railroad, atmosphere


A late season salamander

08/14/07 - Late Season Salamanders

We often see Olympic torrent salamanders on the Spruce Railroad Trail on Lake Crescent, but we usually see them in the spring. Here's proof that we are having a wetter summer than usual. We saw a late season salamander out on the trail just the other day.

Keywords: lake crescent, salamander, spring, spruce railroad, kale

07/26/07 - Driving Time and Distance Map of the North Olympic Peninsula

We get a number of questions from people trying to plan trips to the North Olympic Peninsula and not sure of how far it is from one attraction to another. Olympic National Park is a big park comprising the central part of the peninsula and much of the Pacific Coast. There are no roads through the middle of the park, and there is no long coastal road to follow. This makes planning a trip a bit tricky. Even getting from La Push to Rialto Beach, a distance of perhaps a mile or two along the coast requires driving inland to the bridge at Mora, so the total drive is perhaps 11 miles and takes about 25 minutes. Hurricane Ridge is not very far from the Hoh Ranger Station as the raven flies, but it is several hours drive.

To help the many visitors to the park and surrounding areas, we offer this Kaleberg Driving Time and Distance Map of the North Olympic Peninsula. It is based on the distances as computed by Google Maps, but we have used our own estimated driving times rather than the Google estimates. Google has some peculiar ideas on how fast one can drive on various park roads, and they still have the Hurricane Hill Trail from Whiskey Bend to Hurricane Hill as an automobile road! We're sure that was a trail, even before Google was founded. We've also taken some liberties in defining certain intermediate locations which do not appear on any map. In general, things like Elwha Turnoff and Hoh River Crossing are not marked as such on any other map you might find, but are useful junction points linking roads and turnoffs, just what you want for planning your drive.

Driving Distance Time Map for the North Olympic Peninsula

Keywords: maps, science, port angeles, hurricane ridge, hurricane hill, hoh rain forest, elwha, la push, lake crescent, obstruction point, rialto beach, la push, spruce railroad, kale

07/15/07 - Silver Light at Lake Crescent

Since we've been gawking at the Hurricane Ridge webcam rainbow, we should also note that there was some amazing light at Lake Crescent this morning, as you can see in this webcam image.

Click to enlarge

Keywords: lake crescent, atmosphere, hurricane ridge

05/11/07 - Great Year For Triliums at Lake Crescent

Last year there seemed to be an awful lot of trilliums along the Lake Angeles trail. This year, there seem to be an awful lot of triliums along the Spruce Railroad trail at Lake Crescent. Keep your eyes open. A lot of them are along the slow ascent at the eastern end of the trail, and it is easy to miss them with all the ferns and shrubs. Also, keep your eyes open for salamanders. They are out there, especially on wetter days.


Keywords: flowers, spruce railroad, lake angeles, lake crescent, salamander, trillium, kale

03/22/07 - Currants and Curtains of Drips

If you are out at Lake Crescent this week, keep your eyes open for currant blossoms. There were a few just a bit west of the Devil's Punchbowl, and there were lots more buds getting ready to open.

Also, keep your eye out for curtains of drips. There is a lot of water in the earth this spring, and the mosses are loving it. If you look closely, the rock walls are garden nurseries, and some of the flowers are in bloom.

Keywords: spruce railroad, spring, flowers, lake crescent

03/06/07 - First Salamander (and Slug) of Spring

A lot of trails are closed right now. Whiskey Bend Road is more or less wiped out, and the Hoh Rain Forest is inaccessible. This means we are spending a lot of time on the Spruce Railroad Trail at Lake Crescent. We were out there a few days ago, and it sure smelled of spring. Today, it smelled even more spring-like. The currant and salmonberry blossoms are getting ready to bloom. Then we saw it. The first salamander of spring! We knew that slugs could not be far behind. We were right. A bit down the trail, there it was, a slug, slugging its way through the trail debris.

Eventually other trails will reopen, and even the high country will thaw out and open up, but for now, we are going to watch for spring.

We often have trouble believing how clear Lake Crescent water is. The upper rocks in this picture are under water. The water is radioactive pool blue, even without radioactive waste to make it glow.

Keywords: elwha, spruce railroad, spring, animals, salamander, slugs, high country, hoh rain forest, lake crescent, trails, salmon

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