I love Olympic National Park very much, unfortunately, we visit it too seldom. The south part of the park was not the subject of our attention before at all. So, we decided to correct this situation and spent the last weekend of July hiking in the mountains and forests of the south part of the park.
As a starting point, we choose North Fork. We came here in our first day pretty late in the afternoon, checked which circle trail we can do for the time we have, and decided to ascend to Three lakes, spend night where, on the next day ascent to the Connector to the trail along North Fork Quinaut River, pass to this trail, and go down.
Our GPS-track:
According to the park map, it should be 6.9 miles (about 11 km) to the lakes. With elevation gain about 1200 meters. Our GPS showed 18 km (11 miles). Our GPS usually shows the correct distance. So, somebody was nor right.
“Three Lakes” is actually only one lake, but the camp place is right near the lake. It was only one group of two people except us, and their tent was far from the lake, so we were practically alone. So, we set our tent right near the lake in the blueberry bushes.
The lake is not too deep, but clean and big enough to have a good swim. The water was warm, so I spent a nice time in the lake in the evening and in the morning.
The night brought a huge amount of dew. A toad came to us.
Blueberry, spider nets and dew are everywhere.
Plenty of porcini mushrooms.
Between Three lakes and Connector were plenty of small lakes and beautiful views.
The second day showed again a huge difference in distance between map and GPS. The map promised 14.5 miles (23.5 km). The real distance was 31.5 km (about 20 miles).
So, for both days we did 49.5 km with elevation gain 2000 meters.
Down on the river, we met the ranger and asked her about this difference. Definitely, we were not first who asked this question. She started to talk about old maps, new trails, actually glossed over.
So, don’t rely on the park’s map with trip planning.
However, the place is really nice, I definitely want to visit it again.
