Sol Duc Hot Springs and Falls in Olympic National Park, WA

Sunday 9/2/2012

From Forks, WA, it is 27 miles north on Hwy. 101 to the turn off to Sol Duc Hot Springs and Falls. At the turn off on Sol Duc Road, it is another 13 miles to the falls.

We came to the Sol Duc Campground first, so we pulled in to check it out.

The campground has cabins that can be rented. The rentals include cabins without kitchens, and with kitchen. There is also a suite that sleeps up to 10 people. Rentals include free pass to the Sol Duc hot springs pools.

The Sol Duc Hot Springs Lodge has a cafe, restaurant, general store and gift shop.

The resort is celebrating it's 100th year.

The 2 hot spring pools and the fresh water pool is located behind the lodge. This isn't quite what we expected for hot spring pools. Looks more like someones back yard pool?

Only one of the hot springs pool was open that day for some reason. The hot springs pool average 100 degrees.

We thought the trail head to the falls was located in the resort, so we crossed the river and started up the trail.

The Sol Duc RV Campground is 1/4 mile from the Sol Duc Lodge. It has 17 electric and water back in sites. There is an extra fee for the use of the hot spring pool.

We continued up the trail looking for the falls.

Next on the trail we came to the Olympic National Parks Campground amphitheater.

The National Olympic Park Campground had nice tenting sites next to the river.

The park also had sites for RVs, some back in's and some pull through's. The campground charges $14 a night and water is available during the summer months. Website stated sites were long enough for RVs that were 21 ft, but there were also a few 35 ft sites.

We continued up the trail. After walking on the trail for about a mile we came to Loop B of the 80 site campground, and started to wonder how much father to the falls. We asked a camp host and found out that the trail was 2 miles to the trail head. We turned around and went back to our car.

The parking lot at the trail head was full, so we had to drive back down the road until we found a spot where we could park completely off the road. It was Labor Day Weekend, and we were told at the gate that you had to park off the road. We saw where some people were partly on the road, and had receive tickets from the park.

We finally got on the trail after walking another 1/2 mile from where we had to park the car down the road from the parking lot.

My left foot was starting to go to numb at the start of the trail. I had to stop several times, loosening my shoe laces. I had my hiking shoes on that I bought last year. I have worn them several times, but not enough to completely break them in. Because we had already walked 1 1/2 miles before we had even got to the trailhead, I knew I was going to be in trouble by the time we got back.

We got to the bridge that crosses the river.

Looking up the stream from the bridge.

The Sol Duc Falls.



 

From the bridge there were other trails that continued on. We knew that was not going to happen.

Picture from the other side of the falls, toward the bridge.

Needless to say there were a lot of people on the trail that day.

We headed back up the trail.

Up the trail from the falls, there is a rain shelter for when you get caught in rain in the "rain forest".

The rain starts around October and rains until summer the following year.

People checking out the rain shelter on the trail.

I probably stopped 4 to 5 times going back on the trail, trying to loosen my shoe to get relief. I had to just push through the pain to get back to the car. Joe told me I need to break my shoes in better or wear other shoes on longer trails. This was suppose to be a short trail. We both just needed to read signs better!

We followed the Sol Duc River back to Hwy. 101.

We made one stop to view the Sol Duc River.

To Be Continued: