Church Creek — Sunday, Aug. 13, 2023

Beautiful summer Sunday afternoon hike on Church Creek trail.  No other hikers seen on trail.  Forest Roads 23 & 2361 clear except for some edges, and suitable for all vehicles to last fork at Church Creek access road.  From there to trailhead, 2.1 miles with 28 waterbars.  We got over without scraping in a Honda CRV.  I would not recommend a lower clearance passenger car.

Trail in good shape to the Satsop side of the divide, getting a little brushy in places.  About a mile and a half in, a bit past the pass and rock wall where the trail meets the decommissioned road, at about 2,960' elevation, there is a tree, about 31" diameter, fallen across the trail at a steep angle.  On the high side, it has been notched out underneath for crawling room, but devil's club was growing there.  We removed it.  There is a stub and foot hold to facilitate climbing over it.    A few hundred yards further up, and before the watershed divide, another tree is down lengthwise on the trail. The stubs have been trimmed to make enough room to squeeze by on the uphill side of it.

At the divide, the "huge double-pistol-butted hemlock" mentioned in "Day Hiking Olympic Peninsula" by Craig Romano, 2nd ed., still stands on the downhill side of the trail.  On the other side of the divide, there is a small clearing on hiker's left descending, with a few fallen logs, which apparently is a vernal pool at other times of the year, but was dry.  We had a snack there and headed back out.