Kennedy Creek Salmon Trail

This is a short intepretive trail that is open only in November. The purpose of the trail is to view chum salmon spawning. We went the first weekend in November and got rained on and soaked through but saw very few salmon. We were too early to see the bulk of the run and the river was too high and muddy to see what was running. Today we went again and we were too late to see the bulk of the run. My toddler enjoyed looking at all the dead fish but my 8 year old was threatening to throw up from the stench of rotting salmon.

Then we carried on to the Capital Forest. Well perhaps it was the Capital Forest, I'm not having much luck actually finding the place! I can see what I think is the forest, I even found a street called Capital Forest Dr. But I can't seem to find the entrance points to the forest. I wish I could find better directions.

What ever we found it was kind of nice, it was a board walk running around a wet land area that had been logged over perhaps 50 years ago. We admired the old growth stumps and hunted for mushrooms. Gee I can't even remember the name of it. Ok I found it on google, it was Mclane Creek Centennial Demonstration Forest. It was part of the Capitol Forest. I'll have to do some more exploring in the Capital Forest but the fact that it is also for mountain bikes and ORV's coupled with the fact that I live just as close to Olympic National Park makes me slow in going to explore it. What could possibly be better then Olympic National Park?

Capital Forest is closed to ORV's and bikes from November 1st to March 31st so this would be the time of year to hike it.

I know where I am going to hike this week and I'm excited about it. I'd rather hike on my usual day but there is an 80% chance of rain that day so I will wait until Wednesday with it's 30% chance of rain. I'm going high and don't want to be in a blizzard!