Whiskey Bend Trailhead, Elwha River, Olympic Nat’l Park the Elwha River Trail entry

Elwha River Trail, Whiskey Bend Trailhead
Elwha River Trail, Whiskey Bend Trailhead

Note:  Since 2017 and continuing into 2021, the road going to Whiskey Bend Trailhead has been washed-out.  This means about 7 miles of walking on the road, to get to the trailhead.

Whiskey Bend Trailhead is an important starting point for both deep backcountry access into the Olympic National Park, and for the very popular Humes Ranch and Geyser Valley day-hiking and family-camping area, both via the Elwha River Trail. It is also the start of a 7.9 mile peripheral through-hike on Wolf Creek Trail, to the Wolf Creek Trailhead, at the Hurricane Hill Picnic Area. This trailhead does require a 4.5 mile drive up the primitive Whiskey Bend Road, which is very marginal (generally not suitable) for trailers and RVs, and will be a bit of an adventure in normal cars, for plenty of drivers. Just the drive up the road to the trailhead qualifies as an outing, even an event, just to go up, get out for a few minutes, and come back down.

Prefab outhouse, Whiskey Bend Trailhead
Prefab outhouse, Whiskey Bend Trailhead

There is a picnic table, a modern vault outhouse, an info-kiosk and reader-board, trail-signage, and a rectangular loop gravel parking lot for a few dozen vehicles – and rudimentary livestock facilities. No camping allowed within 1/2 mile.

There is no other development around Whiskey Bend. All facilities & amenities were left behind down in the tourism-oriented Elwha River Recreation Area, where the deadend road begins.

Horse or llama facilities, Whiskey Bend Trailhead
Horse or llama facilities, Whiskey Bend Trailhead

There is a livestock-trailer landing or dock to unload & load animals in the parking lot, and rails to tie them to, but no corral. Horse owners do drive the road with trailers; the road is not impossible, but close attention and care are required, and a strong vehicle that you know well. The steep mountain side is heavily forested, so one does not get the full impact of the situation. Wolf Creek is actually the Hurricane Ridge Abandoned Road, which makes it attractive for horse-riding, especially going up hill. The Whiskey Bend Road itself is the rest of the old ‘goat-trail’ road up the south side of Hurricane Hill. With clients, horse-wranglers can have an assistant or spouse drive the truck & trailer back around & up to Hurricane Ridge, making for an ideal one-way guided ride. Llama-supported pack-operations have at times also operated out of Whiskey Bend.

Livestock hitching rail, Whiskey Bend Trailhead
Livestock hitching rail, Whiskey Bend Trailhead

Also attractive for horse-outings from Whiskey Bend is the ‘new’ Long Ridge Trail, which begins after a 2 mile ride past Geyser Valley. Before the Park took over, Dodger Point at the top end of Long Ridge was a primary fire lookout and crew-station site, which was supplied by pack-horse. Originally, access to the lookout was the Long Creek Abandoned Trail, which was a bit gnarly for horses, and could not be adequately upgraded. So, presumable the Depression Era CCC Civilian Construction Corps built the ‘new’ horse-graded route that runs 10 miles up Long Ridge, 14 from the trailhead. And hey, Dodger Point is still one of the best ‘lookouts’ in the Park.

Again, this type of trail is a lot nicer for clients and horses alike, than the usual (human) foot-trails that comprise most of the Olympic Park trail system. Uneven, bumpy, twisty-bouncy trails are ok for people and other monkeys, but they are an adversity for horses, and require higher levels of horsemanship, of riders.

This trailhead is one end of the Bailey Range Traverse.

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