Distance: 57.8 mi.
Elevation Gain: 15,000 ft.
Peaks Climbed: Cat, Stephen, Ferry, Barnes, Queets

I would call the Bailey Range Traverse an informally maintained thru-scramble. It’s a thru-hike that Craig has wanted to do for many years, so with travel restrictions in place we decided to make it our main trip for 2020.

Day 1
We left Seattle at 5:30 AM to shuttle cars between North Fork Quinault and the Sol Duc trailheads, then finally got hiking around noon. The trail was mostly flat until the trail split between the Sol Duc Trail and the Deer Lake Trail, where we stayed left toward Heart Lake. The trail climbed pretty steadily though mossy forest until we were nearer the Seven Lakes Basin, where it began to climb more steeply. We saw quite a few people descending the Seven Lakes Basin loop both with overnight and day packs. We filled up water at Heart Lake since we didn’t know if we’d have another opportunity, then began climbing steeply toward the unnamed trail split toward the Catwalk heading east. From here the trail remained mostly flat. We did encounter one bear munching on ripe blueberries so we clacked our trekking poles together and he walked off grumpily.

We were hoping to make it all the way to the Catwalk for camp but my feet had the day one packweight blues and adding overnight water didn’t help. When we saw a grassy flat spot in the wooded section just before the traverse below Cat Peak, we decided to set up camp. There were a couple puddles nearby but they didn’t look at all appetizing for drinking water. Craig slung a bear line since we couldn’t quite fit all our food in the bear can while I reached a new level in leave no trace by burying someone else’s toilet paper 😐 There were ripe huckleberries to add to our morning oatmeal right next to our tent!

Day 2
My feet were feeling fine in the morning thankfully. First we traversed steep scree slopes on degrading trail, then made a sharp left to climb straight uphill toward the Catwalk. Compared with our last trip to this area in 2017, someone had put a lot of energy into making this transition much more obvious, so thanks stranger(s)! When we reached the Catwalk we turned left to stash our overnight gear at a nice (waterless) campsite and then headed toward Cat Peak. Nice grippy talus and helpful boot tracks made this a fun second class scramble, though it took us a little longer than we hoped. The views from the top were stupendous – from the ocean to the Hoh River, Mount Carrie to Mount Olympus and everything in between. We found a slightly more direct route back to our packs and then had lunch.

From here we continued onto the Catwalk. Some of the third class moves on this narrow ridge were a bit more attention grabbing with overnight packs on, but there were good handholds throughout and an obvious boot track to follow. We soon reached the pretty meadows below Mount Carrie, where we continued monching on berries with reckless abandon. On the south side of Carrie we did a very tedious and steep downclimb on hard pack dirt.

Then we began a long sidehilling traverse on brushy meadows in and out of several scree gullies, a couple of which required very spicy moves on thin, crumbly feet to enter.

We got water at the first opportunity in the Eleven Bull Basin at a piddly creek, but crossed about ten or so gushing streams and waterfalls soon after. Toward the end of the basin we had to do another steep downclimb and some challenging traversing. Before the trail started downclimbing toward Cream Lake, we split off to the left (north) to climb a steep meadow toward a low point on the ridge in order to take the high bypass route toward Stephen Lake.

There was one group not far ahead of us and they ended up taking this bypass route to camp at Stephen Lake as well (the typical route goes to the reportedly swampy and buggy Cream Lake). We didn’t want to step on their toes so we climbed around the south side of the lake to camp on the east side on a small pebbly beach. The lake was quite calm and beautiful and we were happy with our choice. We quickly set up camp and made dinner while the clouds rolled in, then hopped in the tent as it began to rain.

Day 3
It rained on and off until the early morning, so we decided to get up late in hopes that the sun would arrive and dry out the tent. The sun hit our beach around 9 AM so we did our chores while stuff dried out. We finally got hiking around 10 AM.

We continued toward the north end of the lake before breaking off to the right (east) toward Stephen Peak. We had to choose one steep east facing scree gully to climb in order to access the upper slopes toward Stephen Peak. We’re not sure if we chose the best gully but it went fine. Then we curled clockwise to the northeast ridge of Stephen, where we began climbing directly up on some low third class scrambling.

When we reached the point that we wanted to later traverse toward the southeast ridge, we stashed our overnight gear and then quickly continued to the summit. The rock quality was pretty bad but it was kind of fun scrambling from the false summit over to the true summit on a narrow ridge. The summit register was waterlogged so we signed the register container itself as others had done and then began our descent back to our packs.

After lunch we crossed steep scree and a couple gentle snow patches toward the southeast ridge of Stephen Peak, then dropped on the other side of the ridge to a boot track that was pretty well marked with cairns. After leaving the boot track we decided to stay high and follow game trails to the southeast before finally dropping down to the right (south) toward the Upper Ferry Basin when we were north of Lake 5369 on the east side of the basin.

We continued south on the right side of the lake, dropped to another smaller lake, and then curled left (east) to the largest lake in the basin. We hiked along the left (north) side of this lake and then briefly dropped to the final lake of the basin, which was our last known water source for a while. We stashed our overnight gear here and then climbed back north toward Mount Ferry. We climbed loose scree and when we got to the ridge above it was pretty obvious which peak was highest so we scrambled over to the right, mostly avoiding brush. It was a pretty fun second class scramble to the top. We returned to our packs and filled up water for the evening. Craig had scouted a nice campsite with an eastern view a couple hundred feet to the east so we set up camp there.

Day 4
Our campsite was pretty but ended up being really breezy, especially after 4 AM. Our tent was flapping too wildly to sleep so we got up early to watch the sunrise. We made breakfast while the dew on the tent dried up and then began our climb for the day. We realized that there was a small running stream right above our camp, which might have had better tasting water than the silty lake to our west. We had been leapfrogging with a group of four guys since Day 2 and we reached their camp a bit further up the ridge at about 8 AM. Their spot was pretty primo with views to the east and west and they said it wasn’t too windy, so it would probably be worth carrying water a bit farther to enjoy this camp. (There was a puddle of melting snow near their camp but that wouldn’t be reliable.)

Soon after their camp we had to ascend a very crappy scree slope and put on helmets. Afterward we continued up the ridge on a good boot path until we had a view of the Childs Glacier, then dropped right (west) into some loose scree. We began traversing left (south) toward the glacier at about 5600′. The portion we had to cross was still mostly shaded and the snow was pretty firm so we pulled out our ice axes and microspikes. I probably would have felt comfortable with spikes and trekking poles but apparently a lot of people do this without either spikes or an axe which would have been, in Craig’s words, a “butt-puckering” experience.

Anywho, we traversed mostly flat on the glacier until we reached a scree slope climbing toward a low point in the east ridge of Childs Peak. This slope was relatively easy to climb. After the ridge we dropped southwest and continued in this same direction for quite a ways. If this basin doesn’t already have a name, I submit that it should be called “Junkyard Basin”. It looks like a pile of garbage and I don’t understand how nature made it. We saw a couple geodes though which was cool. We traversed slightly clockwise as we alternated talus and snow fields.

Before we began climbing again we had a brief lunch in the one spot of shade we could find. (Tip: bring extra sunscreen.) Then we gently climbed a ridge to the south toward Bear Pass. We cut off the ridge at one point to avoid gaining unnecessary elevation but the sidehilling was pretty annoying so probably didn’t save us much energy. We continued south to Bear Pass and then did a tiny side trip to “Bear Pass Peak” which was about 20 feet above the boot track.

We descended the southeast ridge of Bear Pass Peak until we reached a wide flat meadow, nabbing some blueberries for breakfast along the way. We stashed our overnight gear in this meadow and then continued southeast toward Mount Barnes. We climbed scree and snow patches until we were southwest of the peak, where we began to ascend a moderate scree slope. We curled left (north) on boot tracks and aside from a couple brief bush bashings the route was pretty open. The views from this peak were incredible in all directions but we weren’t able to enjoy them much due to swarms of flying ants.

We retraced our steps back to our stuff and then descended south past many pretty streams in meadows until we reached the lake just west of Dodwell- Rixon Pass. We went around to the west side of the lake where we found a pebbly spot with views to the west of Mount Olympus!

Day 5
We left our campsite a little after 8 AM and headed directly toward the ridge of Mount Queets. Craig had read conflicting trip reports stating that the route to Mount Queets from Dodwell-Rixon Pass was a 2nd class scramble along the ridge or a 3rd class traverse at about 5300 feet. We thought that the ridge looked feasible from Mount Barnes while the traverse looked quite unpleasant, so we decided to start with the ridge and drop down to the traverse as needed. We were able to make it about 1/3 of the way along the ridge, which was mostly 2nd class scrambling on crumbly rock and steep heather with a few brushy areas, before realizing that the remainder of the ridge would be impassable so we dropped a couple hundred feet to the traverse route on steep, firm scree. We traversed until we crossed below a steep cliff about halfway along the east side of the ridge, then we began climbing on talus back toward the ridge. We had to climb on challenging steep heather and crumbly slabs above the talus, but eventually made it to the ridge for the final 1/3 of the climb. The final climb was an easy 2nd class scramble around the west side of the ridge and then a moderately steep snow slope south on the east side of the ridge. We brought out microspikes and ice axes for this traverse but you could probably safely cross without. We curled clockwise up the snow slope and back on rock for the short scramble to the true summit. The views from the summit didn’t knock my socks off for how much effort we had put in to reach it.

We were hoping to continue the high traverse across Meany and Noyes to the Seattle Basin, but the ridge looked truly terrifying from Queets. We knew it had been done but it looked unwise to proceed without ropes.

Craig had a route description to rejoin the typical Bailey Range Traverse route by dropping northeast to the Elwha Snow Hump. We looked at the route description closely and decided on our best route based on topography.

We began our descent by glissading down the snow slope we had traversed on the east side of the ridge, which was fun. Then we continued on and off down steep snow, steep crumbly slabs, and steep firm scree. The descent was very challenging but doable…that is, until the small streams surrounding us began to coalesce into cascading waterfalls left and right. As we tried to avoid the cascades, we kept finding ourselves cliffed out and having to reroute. I’ve never wanted off a mountain so badly in my life, and it just wouldn’t let me off! It was incredibly slow going and treacherous. After a short bushwhack we found ourselves with a cliff directly below us, a brushy cliff to our right, and a waterfall to our left. Craig said he would check out the scree slopes past the waterfall to see if there was a route down, and I agreed to wait on the other side.

At least half an hour later, just as I was truly beginning to believe I would find Craig at the bottom of some death cliff, he finally popped back out and said he had found a route down. We bushwhacked along some crumbly ledges to the north and then turned back south on more firm steep scree until we finally landed safely on the Snow Hump. We were significantly more bruised and bloodied that we were at the beginning of the day, but at least we made it off that damn slope alive. Do yourself a favor and try to forget that this route exists, because it shouldn’t. I had to throw my pants away after this scramble because all the danger slab scooching ripped an irreparable hole in the butt 🙁

We put on microspikes to cross the icy Snow Hump, then dropped into the river bed on the right (west) side. It doesn’t matter too much which side of the river you choose because you will likely need to rock hop across the river several times as the scree slopes on either side become too steep to safely traverse. Even an easy 2nd class scramble takes on new meaning when there’s a rushing river just below. We finally reached the brushy slope we’d need to ascend right (south) in order to access Elwha Basin. Even though we followed boot tracks, flagging, and cairns throughout our path through this brushy hell pit, we’re fairly certain we were off route so don’t consider this part of the GPS track as a great authority.

We were very thankful to enter open grassy slopes in the Elwha Basin, and were enchanted by the many waterfalls that a creek entering the river created along the right (south) side of the basin. Our enchantment quickly wore off as we approached the Elwha River and the brush went from minimal to moderate to extreme. If you’re interested in recreating the experience of being born, the final brush bash to the river was made for you.

We finally crossed the river by hopping rocks (Craig) and wading across (me) and then quickly reached the Happy Hollow Trail on the other side. This trail has clearly been left to its own devices for a decade or more, so don’t expect particularly quick travel. There were downed trees and overgrown brush to contend with. By the time we made it to the Happy Hollow Shelter we decided to set up camp at the uninspiring and probably unsanctioned tent site about 100 ft off the coast of the river. As the cherry on top to our miserable day, we discovered that there were biting no-see-ums at the campsite so we had to pace while eating dinner to keep them off and then ran around like maniacs before jumping into our tent.

Day 6
The next morning we packed up camp without eating breakfast and headed straight for Chicago Camp, which was less than a mile away and definitely would have been worth continuing onto even in our exhausted state the evening before. The camp was nice and open with several flat spots and no biting flies to be found. We had breakfast and then briefly chatted with a couple guys camping there, the first other humans we had seen in 2 days. We crossed the Elwha River for the final time on a giant log, and then continued southwest past Lakes Mary and Margaret toward Low Divide. The first part of the campsite was a bit gloomy but the farther south portion was more open and breezy so we pulled out our damp gear here to rest and dry things off.

We continued hiking southwest along the North Fork Quinault Trail for another 10 miles or so until we reached the Elip Creek Camp. This was the busiest campsite we had seen so far but we were able to find one of many flat, sandy spots further north along the creek bed. We even made a campfire for the first time on our trip.

Day 7
We only had about 6 miles left of the North Fork Quinault Trail. Similar to the day before, we crossed several impressive foot bridges over deep gorges. The trail was washed out and brushy in places but in good shape overall with some obvious recent trail work. We reached the end of our thru-hike at about noon and began our reverse car shuttle.

…

With its bright blue lakes surrounded by craggy basins and its alpine meadows interspersed with otherworldly moonscapes, this trip reminded me of the John Muir Trail… but with more mortal danger. With several interesting variations to try, this is definitely a trip worth repeating.

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Gear Used:

• Aluminum ice axe
• Backpacking tent
• Bear canister
• GPS
• Helmet
• Microspikes
• Overnight pack
• Sleeping pad
• Summer sleeping bag
• Stove
• Trail runners
• Trekking poles
• Water drops/filter

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