One last hurrah before the end of the year. Runners, get ready for a fun and festive holiday 10K trail race at Squaxin Park in Olympia, WA on 12/14.

Adventure Dispatch June 10th – 16th

10 June 2016 | Episode |

This is your weekend guide – and just in time too!

Transcript after the jump, because we love you.

Welcome to the Adventure Dispatch for the week of June 10th to June 16th, 2016 for the always amazing Olympic National Park. This week’s information is presented by The Outdoor Society. Get inspired and explore the wild with us.

Can you all believe that we are almost halfway through the month of June? Or that the next adventure dispatch will include the first day of summer? Wow, time is just flying by! Make the most of it and head outdoors now!

As always, we start with a looking at the coming week’s weather. Up in Port Angeles, around the northern sections of Olympic National Park, the weather is going to be less than ideal. We start of Friday with a chance of thunderstorms and nearly half an inch of rain before having a mostly wet Saturday. Sunday looks decent, but cloudy and then rain returns for the rest of the week, with a few days that could see only a few showers. Highs will be in the 50s and lows drop to the upper 30s. This is more like late October weather.

  • The coast and in rainforests regions of Olympic will have similar weather. Friday has a chance of thunderstorms, rain Saturday, partly cloudy on Sunday and chances of rain for the rest of the week. Thursday looks the best with just cloudy skies. Highs will be in the 50s and lows in the 40s, making this ideal weather for wandering the rainforests or seeing dramatic sunsets along the coast.
  • Once again, the best weather on the Olympic Peninsula will be found along the Hood Canal. After a chance of thunderstorms on Friday, clouds return for the weekend and rain isn’t expected to fall until Tuesday. Wednesday will be partly cloudy and then rain returns Thursday for the day. If you are looking to hike and not get wet, chances are your best options are found along the Hood Canal.

While we have been enjoying unseasonably warm weather, our snowpack has quickly vanished. Nearly everything below 5,500 feet is melted out, aside from a few ridges and peaks. Luckily, this week sees the snowpack dropping back to 4500 feet by Tuesday, which could give a dusting to the higher elevations. On Friday the 10th, the higher elevations around Hurricane Ridge could see an inch or two snow. It won’t last long, but it is a much needed dose of precipitation.

This week, we are happy to announce the opening of one of our favorite roads in Olympic National Park. The Deer Park Road leading to Blue Mountain and the Deer Park campground reopened for the season on Friday. We will talk about this area more in a minute. Elsewhere around the park, the Hurricane Ridge Road is now open 24/7, weather permitting! The Hurricane Hill road is also open to the end parking lot and the Obstruction Point Road near Hurricane Ridge is open for nearly 3 of the seven miles. The rest should be opening in a week or two.

  • Out on the Elwha, both the Olympic Hot Springs Road and Whiskey Bend Road are still closed due to washouts from last winter. Plans to put a temporary bridge are still supposedly in the works and will hopefully open soon. Access to the Elwha region is still possible on foot or bike.
  • Every other Olympic National Park road is currently open and should remain that way all week. Keep in mind that the Graves Creek Road in the Quinault Region is washed out 2 miles from the Graves Creek Campground. RVs and large cars are not recommended on the road to the washout because the turnaround spot is pretty small.
  • Out along the Hood Canal, the Dosewallips Road is permanently closed as it has been for a decade or so.

Camping this coming week may be wet, but you have awesome choices of where to stay. All of the campgrounds in Olympic National Park that will open this year are now open. Only Sol Duc and Kalaloch take reservations, every other site is first come first serve. Remember that the Elwha River campgrounds are closed due to the washouts. The Deer Park campground opened on Friday, giving extremely primitive camping over a mile able sea level. If you love star-gazing and access to amazing ridge hikes, camp here. Dosewallips and Graves Creek are both also open, but are only accessible as walk-in campgrounds.

For those visiting Olympic this week, the Outdoor Society’s “Trail of the Week” is the Sol Duc Falls Trail near Sol Duc Hot Springs. This short, family-friendly trail leads to a stunning three-tiered waterfall that has been flowing at awesomely high levels thanks to the warm weather. This area is perfect for photography, as it crosses numerous small streams before reaching a fantastic bridge offering drool inducing views of this gorgeous waterfall. If you haven’t hikes the Sol Duc area, you are missing out on one of the classic views of Olympic National Park. More information on this region and hike can be found on outdoor-society.com and in our Olympic National Park Guidebooks.

This week, there aren’t any announced events going on inside the park. Instead, we highly recommend picking up one of out guidebooks to Olympic National Park. I wrote the Definitive Guide to Olympic last year, and at over 400 pages in length, this is your best bet to find the perfect hike, campground or day trip on the Olympic Peninsula. Pick it up as an ebook and always have it on your phone for last minute tips while driving around the region! Go to outdoor-society.com and get your copy today.

On that shameless plug, this concludes this week’s Adventure Dispatch. If you have any questions, please reach out to us on Twitter and check our website for more info.
This is Douglas saying, “Thanks for tuning in and we will catch you next week, same time, same place.”

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