We took the trail to Satsop Lake from the west trailhead.  I had not driven road 2372 from the northwest end for 20 years, and my companion longer than that.  It had been in pretty rough shape back then, why I never went back, always approaching Satsop Lake from the southeast, from the Satsop Center.  Well that route is impassable now, so I was surprised to learn that the Mountaineers had gone to the lake, taking 2372 from the northwest.  That road, now, is about as good as a secondary Olympic road gets.  It's had work.  A few water bars, but nothing like the ones on the road to the east trailhead.  A few places that get some rock fall, but again, nothing like the east trailhead.  I would not say that just any vehicle could do it but absolutely no trouble in a Forester.  And when we got to the trailhead, there was a Japanese Domestic Market camper van! he made it.

The trail itself is a different story.  I wanted to see the rerouting the Mountaineers had done, but they didn't do enough, apparently.  The trail is completely underwater when it approaches the lake.  Yeah we've had record rain and there's no outflow.  Anyway, the trail is underwater and it's not an easy bushwhack to get around the flooded portion.

Hiked up to the pass, starting from the SW trailhead.

Road Conditions. Wynoochee Valley Rd was nicely paved. Rd 2270 was unpaved, but flat and wide like a highway. Rd 2372 had some dips and a rough surface. No facilities at the trailhead.

Trail Conditions. The trail had plenty of roots and rocks, but was otherwise well-maintained and clear of obstacles. The worst bit was a short section around 3,000ft, just above the waterfall viewpoint (which could make for a good turnaround point). The distance walked ended up being significantly more than the map distance, as the trail on the map (OpenStreetMap) was lacking switchbacks. No running water along the trail.

Highlights. No views, but a few giant trees, and lots of mushrooms.

Crowds. Encountered two parties on the trail, including no hunters.

A party of Olympia Mountaineers stewards scouted the west side of the Church Creek Trail from the Satsop Lake (Forest Service Road 2372) trailhead on August 25.  We returned as a party of fifteen on September 28, with tools and a to-do list.

 Forest Service Road 2372 has been washed out and closed southeast of the Church Creek trailhead.  On our scouting trip, we learned that the other end of FR 2372, from FR 2270 along the east side of Lake Wynoochee is passable to the trailhead from the west, in a pickup truck or SUV.  It's five miles from FR 2270 to the trailhead, at the bottom of a long downhill, just before a sharp turn to the right.  The trailhead parking lot is small and not marked.  The roughest spot is a waterbar at the very beginning.  It takes about 30 minutes to drive the 5 miles. 

After about a third of a mile, the trail emerges from the woods, and overlooks Satsop Lake, a small pond. The trail originally went through the grass uphill from the pond, and then along the edge of the woods, passing by a few open picnic sites and campsites, then curving back to a high gravel point by the lake.  Old sawed billets in the high grass indicate long-ago trail maintenance work along here.  The trail became overgrown with high grass.  Meanwhile, an anglers' social path developed along the edge of the lake shore.  Apparently, this drew traffic away from the higher trail, which became completely overgrown and disused. The lake level rises periodically, putting the anglers' path a few feet underwater.  With the approval of the Forest Service, we set out to re-establish the trail along its original route, higher than the shore-hugging path. 

We flagged the intended route with green flourescent tape.  A group of three Mountaineers, with a power trimmer and two grass whips (golf-club style blade on a stick; some folks call it a sling blade), started hacking a route through a quarter mile of waist- to chest-high grass, still dripping with morning dew.  

The rest of us continued up, with two crosscut saw parties intending to buck trees that had fallen and were obstructing the trail on our August 25 reconnoiter, and a group with a power disc cutter and loppers, intending to cut back brush on the upper section of the west side of the trail.  We found that a vigilante trail maintainer with a chainsaw had already bucked the larger trees.   We cut and removed some smaller logs, which was of some educational value for sawyers-in-training.  The brush cutting team worked its way over the divide, and went down the east side about a quarter mile to see how our rebuild of a switchback and the associated drainage were holding up (they were holding up well). 

The three groups who had gone up the the trail were delighted and impressed on our return to find a path at least four feet wide cut through the high grass.  We are hoping it gets some traffic to help keep it open.

After our previous work in August on the east side, the Church Creek Trail is now free of obstructions from the Satsop Lake trailhead on the west to the Church Creek trailhead in the Skokomish drainage on the east.  

This trip to the Church Creek - Satsop Lake Trail had two purposes.  First, finding a passable route to the trailhead, after the washout on Forest Road 2372 mentioned in other trip reports.  And if successful in that, second, scouting the west half of the trail for a prospective Olympia Mountaineers stewardship trip before rainy season.  At the request of the Olympic National Forest USFS, the Olympia Mountaineers adopted this trail years ago.  

We drove to the  west end (Satsop Lake) trailhead of Church Creek Trail #871 from Forest Service Road 2270 (continuation of Wynoochee Valley Road) near east shore of Lake Wynoochee via FR 2372.  We used my Chevy Colorado pickup truck, which is rear-wheel-drive, with typical ground clearance for a light pickup truck (7.3 inches).  

The deepest water bar of the trip is at the beginning of FR 2372.  If you can get over that, you should have no problems with the rest. Pickup  trucks and most SUVs should do fine.  The spur road to the east end Church Creek trailhead has much bigger and deeper water bars.  Rockfall may be a problem in places.  Driving distance on FR 2372 from 2270 to the trailhead was about 5 miles.  There are some nice views, but the smoke from the Bear Gulch fire produced a noticeable haze.  The trailhead parking area lacks a trailhead sign.  You can recognize it when you get to the bottom of a downhill stretch and have a small parking area on the left, then one on the right, just before the road turns right. 

The trail is clear of obstructions to the pond.  We took the anglers' trail along the shore going in, and found a path a little higher on the way out, passing above a small thicket of alders overlooking the pond. These two converge on a high gravel bank overlooking the pond.  Both are overgrown, mostly with grass.  The higher path should be well above waterline during high water in the pond, and I would recommend that unless you are going fishing.  Some more traffic would help keep it open.  We plan on cutting the grass on the higher path on our stewardship trip.  The trail continues along the stream feeding the pond, and that portion is not much above water level. It turns away from the stream and goes up into the woods, passing a big old fallen tree on the left. 

Between 2,720' and 2,790' elevation, we found three trees down on the trail, up to 34" diameter, and not very difficult to get around or over. We plan to come back late in September and take them out.  From about 2,765', up to 3,050', the trail is intermittently brushy, and needs some work.  It is still easy to follow. 

We went over the top and down the east side to the highest switchback turn, which we rebuilt in early August.  It is holding up well, and drainage is working as intended.  From there to the east end trailhead, the trail was in good shape with no obstructions at the end of our 8/5/25 work project. 

On the drive home, we tried continuing east on FR 2372 to FR 2364 to FR 23 near Spider Lake.  It was manageable in my 2WD pickup, but I don't recommend it.  Much of it is rutted, and I had to keep the tires on one side on the hump in the middle to keep from bottoming out in many areas. There is a lot of rockfall on the roadway. Some sizeable holes had to be avoided.  

This is the trip report for an Olympia Mountaineers trail work party. 

Church Creek Trail August 4 & 5, 2025

Years ago, the Olympic National Forest office of the US Forest Service asked the Olympia Mountaineers Conservation and Stewardship Committee to take on maintenance of the Church Creek-Satsop Lake Trail #871.  This is a historic route connecting the Skokomish watershed draining into Puget Sound with the Satsop-Wynoochee watershed flowing into the Pacific Ocean.  This trail had fallen into disuse and much work was needed to re-open it.

The Olympia Branch has adopted this trail, and we try to maintain it and keep it unobstructed.  This is challenging.  The trailhead is a fifty mile drive from our usual meeting place in West Olympia.  The last ten miles is on gravel forest roads, and the last 2.2 miles requires high clearance vehicles (SUVs, pickup trucks, etc.).  The drive takes about an hour and a half each way.  The east side of the trail has a climb of about 1,500 vertical feet in about two miles to the divide between the Skokomish and Wynoochee basins.  Cell phone coverage is a half hour drive from the trailhead.  Due to the steep terrain, radio and satellite communications are not reliable, so this is not the place to skimp on the Ten Essentials. 

Stewards carry an adequate day pack along with a big tool (the Forest Service shovel, their stand-by Pulaski axe-mattock, a grub hoe and other long-handled tools each weigh about five pounds), and something smaller such as loppers or a Corona saw.  Depending on the task, we may also carry one or two crosscut saws with accessories.  If we will be cutting heavy logs and moving the sections, we will probably bring a peavey, a long wood-handled lever with a point and a hook, weighing about ten pounds, or a rope come-along, a lever-handled winch with 100’ of rope, weighing seventeen pounds, and some rigging. Thus burdened, the stewards typically take two to two and a half hours to get up to work sites near the top of the divide.  Typically, we meet up at 7:00 a.m., stop for more participants along the way, drive to the trailhead, do introductions, sign volunteer forms, have a safety orientation and tool talk.  We are lucky to be hiking by 10:00.  It’s noon and lunch time by the time we get to the job site.  The hike down is usually at least an hour, and the drive back to West Olympia meet-up site is an hour and a half, so turn-around time will be between 2:30 and 3:30 pm, which does not leave much working time on site.

We scouted the trail in late May, and identified more work than we could get done in half an afternoon.  We planned a trip with an optional second day.  Participants could sign up for Monday and Tuesday, or just for Monday.  We would camp overnight at a dispersed campsite on the side of the forest road just before the trailhead.  We could leave tools cached near the work site, and not have to carry them down Monday afternoon or back up Tuesday morning.  We would avoid the delays of the meet-up and drive to the trailhead.  Tuesday’s crew would all be briefed and oriented from the day before. 

Monday arrived with five people signed up.  Four of us (leader Mike Forsyth, assistant leader Sandy Clark, Brandon Beams and new member James Walker) assembled at Haggen’s and caravanned to the trailhead.  We stopped at the fish hatchery parking lot and were joined by Caleb England.  Brandon and James were driving home together at the end of the day, and did not have a vehicle suitable for the last 2.2 miles of road.  We drove to a trailhead near the Church Creek turn-off, parked their car there and shuttled them up to the trailhead. 

We had five members.  The Mountaineers’ minimum safe party size is three.  Lacking sufficient numbers for a second party, we all stayed and worked together.  The trailhead is 1,870’ elevation.  The first half-mile of the Church Creek trail is a path cut into the steep south side of the Church Creek gorge and angling uphill, parallel to the creek to the first switchback at 2,040’.  About half way along this stretch, a falling dead tree had wiped out a short stretch of the trail. 

We went to work with hoe, shovel and Pulaski, hacking more treadway out of the hillside, and carrying rocks in canvas buckets to build the trail out.  We quickly finished, and headed up toward our next work site at 3,100’.

Around 2,900’, the trail joins the route of a decommissioned Forest Service road over a height of land resembling a mountain pass.  A basalt rock face looms over one side of the trail.  It is a long stretch of ground with open sky, covered with whatever wildflowers are in bloom.

The trail leaves the roadway via a short set of rock stairs on the left into the woods on the uphill side and ascends a series of switchbacks.  There are stretches here where “trail creep” is a real problem.  The treadway, or bench, was cut into a hillside to construct the trail.  Erosion and gravity start to fill the uphill or inside corner of the treadway, diminishing the flat tread area. Brush, especially prickly stuff like devil’s club, blackberry and nettles, growing on the uphill side encroaches on the trail and pushes hikers to the outside, and their foot traffic wears down the outside corner of the treadway.   If we had a large enough sign-up, we would have put a re-benching crew to work here for a few hours.  This area, at about 3,000’ elevation, will have to wait for another work project.   Also, on this day, Caleb, Brandon and James went over the divide at 3,250’, and scouted about 0.3 miles down the west side.  They found it could use some brushing, but the trail was open and usable.  These are items for another project.

The highest switchback turn on the east side is at about 3,100’ elevation.  We identified this as a problem area on a 2023 scouting trip.  A tree of about 18” diameter had fallen across the “elbow” of the switchback, cutting off the designed turn.  Hikers were using a living tree of about 8” diameter to hoist themselves up and down and around the corner.  This was causing erosion on the steep slope, exposing the roots of the tree, and likely would result in the death of the tree and destabilization of the bank.  

On a 2024 trip, an Olympia trail crew cut the log blocking the trail, and de-barked and moved a section of it to a position uphill of the two living trees in the photo above.  The plan was to use it as a curb log for grading of the upper approach to the switchback turn on the next work project.  

 Scouting the trail in May, 2025, we found this log still in place.  However, returning with the work party in August, we found that the log had been freshly cut with a chain saw, and the pieces moved aside.  This re-opened a bare, steep slope which we had deliberately blocked.  Recent human (and apparently bicycle) tracks showed that users were scrambling between the two trees and endangering the roots of both. 

This log had been a major component in our plan for rebuilding this switchback turn.  We had to assess available materials in the area, and make a new plan on the fly.  We cleared out the project area and piled the brush, including lots of devil’s club, in the eroding area between the trees, with some branches on top, to discourage short-cutting.  With a D-handled crosscut saw and helper handle, we sawed off a section of the 18” fallen log to widen the lower approach to the turn, and used the section as a curb log for the lower approach.  We found some other suitable logs and moved them into place.  Brandon and James obligingly agreed to stay long enough to finish all the work requiring the use of the crosscut saw and the rope come-along, so we could carry those heavy items out that day and put them away.  At 3:30, we cached several long tools, a few small ones and two canvas buckets near the site, and headed down the trail. 

The trip downhill to camp took about an hour.  After snacks and re-hydrating drinks, Sandy shuttled Brandon and James back to their vehicle and returned to camp.  Just below the trailhead parking lot, there is a flat area beside the road, probably cleared as a staging area for logging operations long ago.  We found more than enough level ground to park three pickup trucks.  Sandy put up a tent behind his.  Mike put up an REI tent-like extension back from the truck cap and tailgate.  Caleb opted for a bivvy sack in the back bed of his truck.  A recent addition to the stewardship committee’s trove of gear is a free-standing handwashing station, with a water tank in its base, a foot pump and a sink bowl, just the ticket for washing up for dinner after a day of playing in the dirt.

With a fire ban in effect and the smell of the Bear Gulch fire in the air, we had no cheery campfire.  But we did cook up rotini with marinara sauce and vegetarian chili on our Coleman stoves, and rehydrated with herbal tea.  We had a pleasant evening of conversation before turning in.

After a quiet night, we all arose early enough to break camp after breakfast, and moved our vehicles from the campsite to the trailhead parking area.  Carrying a lot less weight in tools, we hiked from camp to the 3,100’ work site in two hours, which was 30 minutes shorter than the day before. 

The broad outlines of the new switchback turn had been laid out the day before.   We built the turn with four steps going around the steep bank with the two trees.  The section of the 18” log as our curb log along the bottom.  The riser for the bottom step was made from rocks.   The risers for the next three steps were made from downed trees of about 8” diameter.   

The next step was moving earth and loose rocks, and lots of it.  We dug back into the hillside behind the upper approach to widen the treadway.  Water from rain and snowmelt runs down the hillside behind the upper approach.  To keep it from running across the trail and cutting erosion channels, we dug a drainage ditch between the treadway and the hillside, to carry the water off the trail, at the outside corner of the turn. This dirt was moved to the steps as fill.   Three men with a shovel, a grub hoe and a Pulaski can move quite a bit in a few hours. 

Sandy brushed out the trail below the lower approach.  We tamped down the dirt filling the stair treads and reinforced the log risers by driving in lengths of re-bar.  We packed up about 3:00 p.m.  and carried down the tools which had been cached overnight.  We are looking forward to seeing how our work holds up to traffic and to the coming winter.  Our two-day plan gave us more working time on site, and less time commuting and orienting and tool-talking.  For the east side of Church Creek Trail, this seems to be the most efficient way to work.