Marmot Pass, Buckhorn Mountain — Saturday, Jul. 20, 2002

Olympic Peninsula > Hood Canal

Check the two good reports from last weekend for info on the trail as far as Marmot Pass. From there up to Buckhorn Mountain, the trail is entirely snow-free, water-free, extremely steep, and full of glorious wildflowers, especially lupine and paintbrush. And lots of other purple, yellow, white and pink things. Especially notable are some mauve colored paintbrush - something I've never seen anywhere else except up by Marmot Pass. Bugs weren't too bad and weren't biting at all. There were some little knats and mosquitoes at Camp Mystery in the evening. Up by the pass and beyond, there were swarming flies and other large winged creatures, but again they weren't flesh eaters. One thing of note: by 10 a.m. Saturday EVERY nice campsite was full at Camp Mystery. Most hikers seemed to have come in Friday or earlier. We were shocked that there's no box toilet up there. With around 30 campers in the area, searching for a private spot to take care of business is creating a lot of extra side trails and damage. Someone lost a ton of gear on the trail. We're thinking it was probably horse packers, since hikers would have noticed so much stuff falling from their packs. Right in the middle of the trail we found sunglasses, a tin mug, a ladies sandal, a big buck knife, a fresh banana peel, and a full red duffle-bag. We set the stuff off to the side of the trail on the way up, planning to clean the stuff up on the way down, but it was almost already cleaned up by then (thanks to some nice hiker!). Hey packers - watch your loads - it's bad enough to have to hike around so many piles of fresh horse dung, let alone all the lost gear!