Race Report: “Across the Park” Hike, Olympic National Park (50+ miles)

When I was a new trail runner over a decade ago and just learning about what was possible, I heard about some locals here in Port Angeles, Washington that had completed the “Across the Park” hike. For years I heard stories about this epic journey they had taken as a group from the South side of the Olympic National Park at the Quinault North Fork Trailhead, following over the low divide ending up at the North side of the park at the Madisyn Falls Trailhead on the Elwah River. All together the run is 44 miles from park entrance to park entrance and now an extra almost 6 miles to get to Madisyn Falls because of a washout on the road that no longer allows you to make it to trailhead parking.

On Friday, August 7th I met up with Kyle and we headed out to the Quinault Inn with Kristin and the two munchkins. We kicked off the evening with a full helping of a local favorite, Frugal’s burgers, and were on our way. We took two cars and staged one at the Madisyn Trailhead which is about 2 miles off Hwy 101 on the way out to Quinault. After stashing the car for the night to pick up the next day after the run we took a quick stop at Grannies Café for soft serve with both the kids getting a cone in a cup with extra sprinkles of course.

We arrived at the hotel just after 8pm and fortunately had three rooms in the suite which gave us plenty of space to relax for the short evening before heading to bed for an early morning start. We headed to bed around 10pm and Kyle and I were able to get a good six hours of sleep before our 4am wake up call to start heading to the trailhead. We took a little longer packing up our gear but managed to leave the hotel around 5:15 to head to the trailhead. From the hotel it’s about a 40 minute drive up a moderately bumpy road all the way to the end where you find the North Fork Trailhead. We saw a herd of Elk on the way and were soaking in the lush greenery that surrounds you on all sides as you head into the Olympic National Park. We had pulled the kiddos out of bed from a dead sleep and they were troopers getting loaded into the car and off for a ride into the dark just before sunrise. An experience that they are probably much more used to than most kids their age.

Once we arrived at the trailhead we did our last-minute supply checks, made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast, said our goodbyes, took a few photos and we were off on an adventure. I do a great deal of ultra-events but heading off with one other person with just a moderate amount of supplies on an all-day adventure through the backcountry of the park even makes me a little nervous. Kyle and I were both well-equipped and trained for the event, but with the isolated location and limited people in the backcountry your options if anything goes sideways are very limited.

The first few miles were flat and we covered the ground quickly to our first campsite that we passed with a tent set up at Wolf Bar and still hadn’t run into a hiker. The only highly notable characteristic of the trail was how much dew was on the greenery that surrounded us and we were pretty soaked from our waist down from brushing against it as we went by. We passed a few hikers after the campsite and about 4 miles later we ran into Elip Creek where there were two tents set up right next to the river. It’s worth noting that the vast majority of the trail is lined with beautiful stands of Big leaf maples, Western red cedars, ferns, salmon berries, Douglas fir, Sitka spruce, Western hemlock and the occasional Madrone tree. Along with the greenery is the rushing water in the creeks and rivers, numerous waterfalls, and the occasional lake. At about the 10-mile mark we started to make the climb up to the low divide which slowed our running pace a bit not to mention the numerous downed trees that we had to navigate over and around. At just over 16 miles we hit the low divide after crossing over half a dozen bridges along the way and a couple of water crossings where we were just past our ankles in water.

We could see the Low Divide Ranger Cabin in the distance and we skirted Lake Margaret on our way to the connecting trail that would lead us out of the North side of the park. This is where I took my first wrong turn and took a right instead of skirting the lake. Thankfully we only were off trail less than half a mile heading u hill before realizing it didn’t feel right and made our way back to the lake and onward in the correct heading. This was the first low point where our energy and spirits waned a little and we had to rally before we headed off again.

After passing Lake Margaret we began running pretty steadily again for a few miles which was an enjoyable experience in the shade of the trees on this very moderate afternoon, really about as ideal of weather as we could have expected. A few miles down the trail we ran into a patch of downed trees that was hard to navigate around and we found ourselves off trail. I would have backtracked but I had an All Trails app downloaded on my phone so I just followed the route as close to the arrow as possible and we climbed up and over the brush for almost a half an hour until we finally found the trail again as we ran into another river crossing. It was on this stretch that Kyle got stung by a ground wasp which has become a frequent pastime for him lately on our runs.

After crossing the river we drank again from the creek using our Life Straws and refilled our waters with iodine pills for use later. We ran into two other hikers at the crossing who were doing the same trip but backpacking it over a series of days. Somehow we managed to get off the trail again on this side of the river and it took another 20 minutes for us to backtrack and get back on the path. Thankfully that was our last time being off route as we headed into the final half of the adventure.

At this point we had a burst of energy as we had refilled on food, taken some salt pills, caffeine and as much Tailwind as we could stomach. The next stretch up past mile 35 went extremely fast and we were running most of the mileage again which was encouraging. It was a little past 35 miles in where our energy started tapering off again and also we ran into a few more hills and trees that were blocking our jog quickly turned into a steady hike. The next 10 miles we slowly slogged along, crossing a few creeks and multiple bridges, looking at the rivers and waterfalls but not really appreciating them as much as in the beginning. We passed a hiking cabin which I think people can use in emergencies and our last few hikers bringing our total to 11 hikers that we saw over the course of the day. My GPS watch finally shut off at about 47 miles and the darkness was setting in and we were still on the trail in the National Park. I’m not sure how we found another 5 miles to hike but I swear we hiked out in the dark after putting on our headlights at least another 3 miles. At this point the numerous piles of bear scat on and around the trail was hard not to ignore and even though the chance of a bear encounter was relatively high, even then they are much more likely to run in the opposite direction than to give you any trouble.

We exited the trail at about 9:30pm at Whisky Bend and took about a half an hour break to eat a stockpile of food, refuel, change out our socks and prepare our minds for the five mile or so hike up the road back to our car. We were both pretty whipped out from the day behind us although I am pretty sure Kyle was hurting a whole lot more than me. Mainly because I’ve been pushing that distance for over 10 years now and this was Kyle’s first time beyond the 31 mile mark, and it’s not easy on your body but even tougher on your psyche.

The slow exit down the road went relatively well and I was able to block out the struggle and enjoy the cool crisp air and the stars in the sky as we were surrounded by trees on all sides. We passed by a couple of bikes that were chained up at the trailhead and then another couple of bikes that were not chained up next to some campers who had settled in the middle of the path for the night and I have to say the thought of borrowing their bikes definitely went through our heads and they would have found them at the trailhead at Madison Falls the next morning.

We made our way to the last few miles and were getting ready to cross over the river to avoid the detour which had a bit of extra climbing. As we approached the water we could hear it rushing very heavily and once we made our way up and over the outside of the washout it was very obvious that crossing the river was not an option. I would have been nervous crossing it fresh in the daylight, in the current situation it was not an option on the table. This pretty much completely took the wind out of our sail and with such a short distance we still had some more obstacles to overcome. Thankfully we had reception and I made a couple of phone calls to everyone waiting up for us and could see on the map that we only needed to add a little over half a mile to skirt around the river where the washout had taken out the road.

Kyle and I mustered up our strength for the last push towards the car and were very careful as we went around the river banks and up and over a few hills back onto the main road. As we arrived at the car we loaded up our gear and prepared for the 20 minute drive home. It’s interesting in ultra sports how something that for me had been a dream to do for over a decade ends in such a fashion. It’s usually like tonight was finishing alone or with a friend or two in the dark, maybe a few people meet you at the end or half a dozen die hard fellow athletes come to celebrate with you. After that it’s off to a much deserved meal a shower and off to bed for a long recovery. It sounded like Kyle didn’t even get the meal and the shower but ended up going straight to bed to sleep off the miles.

The hike took us approximately 18.5 hours to cover what I’m assuming is about 55 miles. My Garmin has been being weird lately, and I’m going to upgrade for Uberman to a Coros Vertix which is known to have approximately 60 hours of battery life and is a heck of a watch from all the reviews I’ve heard and ready. My current watch lasts approximately 15 hours which unfortunately in the activities I do from time to time leaves me a bit short on the data tracking. Kyle and I had a great deal of time to discuss next year’s training on this incredible journey across the park.

We’ll focus on speed training once I recover from Uberman. We are looking forward to some very fast 5K, 10k’s and half marathon and topping it off with our fastest marathon of our lives later in the year. We’ll give Kyle some time to recover and in a few months he can make the decision if we also want to add his first 100 mile run to the calendar in which case we’ll likely take on the across the park run again next year and plan on covering the ground in under 15 hours and feeling a little more fresh on the back half of the course. We also discussed bringing some celebratory food along the way including jerky, a couple extra drinks, and a pack of pop tarts in honor of Chris Clemens and his Appalachian trail experience. Kyle wore a shirt that was fitting for the course… “Never Give Up” on his back.