Marmot Pass via Upper Dungeness River Trail, Tubal Cain Mine to Buckhorn Lake — Monday, Jun. 6, 2016

Olympic Peninsula > Hood Canal

Hit the trail at 8 am after car camping at Dungeness forks. The Dungeness river trail looks as though it had just been maintained by a WTA work party a few days earlier as we could point out horseshoe prints. No snow on the trail until the ascent to marmot pass, which was nerve wracking. The turnoff up the switchbacks toward marmot pass is unmarked, if you've reached the shelter and the trail toward home lake you've gone too far! As I mentioned, there are some dangerously sloped snowfields after the first set of switchbacks on the western slopes. If you're not familiar with crossing snowfields, have some sort of self-arrest knowledge or crampons to assist you in crossing, this is the spot to turn around. There's a small boot-path that takes you to the summit with amazing views, the best you'll get when doing the loop. You even get a view of the Puget Sound and the Cascades to the East! We side-hilled for a good mile and a half, hopefully the next hiker will have an easier time following my bootpath. We made it through to marmot pass then followed Tubal Cain trail 3.5 miles to camp at Buckhorn lake. To whoever left the unopened Nice Day IPA chillin on a rock on the eastern slope on the descent to buckhorn, you are a saint. We woke up and hiked out to the Tubal Cain trailhead and continued on forest road 2860 3.7 miles to where we began. All in all, a fantastic overnight loop especially so early in the season! You can at least summit staying south of the first large snowfield and get some fantastic views, 10/10 would recommend. Happy trails!