Three Forks, Upper Gray Wolf River to Gray Wolf Pass, Main Fork Dosewallips River, Lost Pass Primitive, Cameron Pass, Grand Pass & Grand Valley Loop — Thursday, Aug. 25, 2022

I hiked the grand loop are here are my unsolicited pieces of advice to others:

1. Go counter-clockwise starting at Deer Park. Yes, the climb out of three forks on the last day is BAD and a real gut punch. But it's a small price to pay for going up the good sides of Cameron and Grand passes. Starting at deer park rather than obstruction means you get the dry ridgeline done while you are still hydrated on the first day and you get to enjoy the views while you're fresh and not rushing to the car.

2. If you go counter clockwise - push past Falls camp to any of the other campsites before or including three forks. Falls camp was really small and not as pretty as the others in this section. I - and many others I talked to - stayed at Falls because it makes the mileage even with mostly 10 mile days. However, if I had known better I would have pushed to Camp Ellis at least for a better campsite and a shorter morning out. The miles from the bottom of Gray Wolf pass to Three Forks are pretty easy and it should be easy to get them done at the end of the day after climbing gray wolf.

This loop was amazing and I highly recommend it, whichever direction you choose! Here's how I approached it:

D1 - Deer Park to Grand Lake
Pretty easy going. Grand Ridge was fun as a start but as many others have noted there's no water. I started with 2 liters and finished them just as I was seeing water on the descent to Grand Lake.

D2 - Grand Lake to Dose Meadows
This was a tough day! Climbing Grand Pass was beautiful and I was up at the top by 9:45 - I thought it would be smooth sailing from there but woah did the elevation change in this section get me. The trail in the river valley after Grand is pretty overgrown and it's generally slow going up to cameron basin. Nothing too major and the trail is still navigable, but generally rocky and lots of vegetation. You're not going to sprint through any of the downhill or "flat" after Grand.
I wanted to spend way more time in Cameron basin than I got to. I was there pretty late in the day due to my slow pace but it was absolutely beautiful! An amazing remote alpine meadow and then you climb up to what feels like the surface of the moon on Cameron pass. A truly magical experience to have this area all to myself. The olympics on full display! It would be worth adding a day to camp at upper cameron if you have time and want a slower day thrown in.
The descent from lost pass to dose meadows is straight down and unforgiving. Going down this is one of the main reasons I recommend going counter clockwise - this climb would have been legit awful going the other way.

D3- Dose meadows to Falls camp
My main advice here is listed above. The "easy" climb up gray wolf was a relief after my previous day. It took awhile but a lot of the climb was shaded and the switchbacks were forgiving. Once the trail got into the valley with the gray wolf river it got brushy and lots of downed trees again. This whole area could definitely use some trail maintenance!

D4- Falls camp to Deer Park
This climb out of three forks surprised me and took a lot longer than I expected since I was so tired from this loop. Everything is pretty uneventful for this last section and I was glad to have an audio book on hand.

Happy hiking!