Humes Ranch is an old mountain homestead along the Elwha River Trail in the Olympic National Park. Many refer to the general Geyser Valley environs and cultural-features complex, as ‘Humes Ranch’, although it’s only one part of it. The homestead dates to around 1900; the Olympic Mountains had first been entered & traversed by Westerners, less than a decade earlier (by the Press Expedition 1889-90). ‘Going to Humes Ranch’ is a popular day-hiking, photo-outing and minimal-backpacking camp-out for locals and knowledgable travelers alike. The area begins only one mile from the Whiskey Bend Trailhead, and the main trail leaves the venue behind within about 3 miles.
The cabin is still there, and on the National Register of Historic Places. It’s a modest, simple log cabin … a structure which is easily completely defined & replicated from authentic new materials, if desired & indicated. A quick look-over of the existing cabin, and a glance at available historic photographs does suggest that such practices may have confered immortality on this little building.
The local Historical Society collected and preserved log cabins beginning many decades ago. They were totally dismantled, every single piece identified & documented; transported to highly-organized storage facilities, and then subsequently reassembled at the Lincoln Park Cabins Exhibit in Port Angeles. Many locals in school volunteered on the cabin-projects, and it is indeed well-known how to keep small log structures faithfully maintained, indefinitately.
It is encouraging, that the Humes Cabin does not have to end, when the sill logs give out, or the roof rafters cave in.
The Ranch itself consists of two parts; a compact riverine bench elevated a few tens of feet with the cabin and orchard (one small apple tree at least still hanging on), and a much larger adjoining field on the next-lower terrace. Old photos indicate that things have grown up since, and that 100 years ago the setting was much more open around the homesite.