Long Ridge Trail takes about 14 miles to ascend Dodger Point, from the Whiskey Bend Trailhead. Dodger hosted the old Forest Service fire lookout, before this country was Olympic National Park. Virtually the entirety of the interior Elwha River valley is in view; along with eastern and southern peaks of the Olympic Mountains, and much of the Bailey Range to the west. Unlike most trails in the Olympics, Long Ridge was purpose-built to commercial & professional pack-horse specifications, which means the grade is steady, even and smooth. With less than 500 feet elevation per mile, this trail is especial fast, coming back downhill.
This trail officially begins about 1.8 miles up the main Elwha River Trail, at an intersection in front of Michael’s Cabin (on the National Historic Registry). From there it’s a couple of tenths of a mile to the river, past Humes Ranch and through the upper part of Geyser Valley, to the Long Ridge Trail Bridge across the river. The ascent on Long Ridge proper is thus about 12 miles.
Dodge Point certainly provides the best strategic vantage-point of the Elwha River valley. It was one of the major fire lookout stations, established in the early 20th C. by the Forest Service when it managed the Olympic Mountains. Old buildings on the National Registry remain on top of Dodger Point, remnants of the fire lookout complex from the 1930s.
The quality Long Ridge horse-trail was probably built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) around the mid-1930s. The CCC was part of the ‘Stimulus Package’ of the Great Depression Era, putting legions of young, single men to work ‘at something’ … and giving them a taste of para-military regimen. Family men, who really needed the employment more, weren’t part of the CCC.
There was once another or different trail up to Dodger Point, before the ‘new’ one was put in; the Long Creek Abandoned Trail was the previous, perhaps an ancient route to Dodger Point. The lower parts of Long Creek Trail are still discernible, and useful for accessing unusual destinations in the Olympics. As is common with Native American and settler-woodsman (human) foot-trails in rugged country, some parts of the Creek route were too challenging for pack-animals, and too difficult to upgrade satisfactorily. But it was shorter and faster.
At Dodger Point itself, there are connections to two other trails, even though Long Ridge Trail is normally viewed & used as a ‘practically’ deadend route. First, the Dodger Point Trail drops off the south (opposite) side of Dodger, reaching the Elwha banks in 4.5 to 5.5 miles, depending on the choice of starting point. The main Elwha River Trail is on the other side, and there is seemingly nowhere else to go, without crossing the river. The river is getting somewhat smaller this far up, but not a lot, and so much depends on rainfall and snow/glacier melt. Wading is hardly going to be a reliable solution … only in very low water conditions. Of course, if the Tribe has dugout canoes up on this stretch of the River, this is a great spot for quickly getting up to the subalpine meadows (onions, lilies, blueberries, fat, meat, hides).
The second Dodger Point connection is the dynamited Ludden-Scott Abandoned Trail. This could be more of the CCC work, but it also could have been an independent Forest Service contract. A Grand Canyon-style dynamited horse-trail system was planned through the core, interior (pragmatically inaccessible) mountain massifs of the Olympic Mountains, and dynamite work commenced from several starting-points surrounding the hardrock core. This piece of trail is a notable example today, because the mild south cliffs of Ludden Peak from which the narrow gauge road was blasted are naturally exposed & barren; the dynamite cut is mostly clean and in good condition, with very little overgrowth.
Long Ridge Trail is of course an excellent horse-trail, today, and Whiskey Bend Trailhead is nicely set up for livestock, even though the Whiskey Bend Road up to it is marginal for trailers.