Walks with Moss: Sundown Lake via Wynoochee Pass Backpack

Headwaters of the Skokomish River and ancient meeting place of the Quinalt, Dosewallips and Skokomish tribes

My overseas friend Abra, is living with me this summer and I wanted to show her some old growth forests while she is here and I wanted to see some new things too. We also wanted to avoid the covid crowds.

The Wynoochee Pass trail to McGravy Lakes seemed just the ticket. This little known stub of an old 15 mile long trail is often overlooked. The road the trail is a bit rough and it is closed for half of each year. I've never been on the Six Ridge or the Wynoochee Pass trail before. It was time to go!

Without doing enough research, I decided we would backpack to Sundown Lake in one day, then go up to McGravy Lakes for one or two nights and then go all the way back to the car on the last day.

The route was more up and down than I had realized in my rushed research and my fiancé is a beginning backpacker with a very healthy fear of heights. I have not been backpacking in over six months and this proved to be too ambitious of a plan for either of us.

After a two hour drive to the washed out road before the current trail head we started our hike at 11:20. The first half mile or so is on old road bed and then at a switchback in the road the trail starts. The Wynoochee pass trail used to start 15 miles downriver but has been destroyed by logging, road building and the dam.

Lunch at the car before the start of our hike. I grew this tomato and cuke. We lost the cuke on the trail and never saw it again.

The trail is lined with old growth and it is beautiful! We had a very nice but slow hike on this trail. There were a few downed old growth trees blocking our way and progress with my fiancé who is a new backpacker and is very afraid of falling was very, very slow. But she is keen and wanted to keep going in spite of a few moments of terror.

After a few hours became clear that we were not going to make it to Sundown Lake in one day, our start was too late and we were moving too slow.

The route to Sundown Lake is up and down, up 1,000 feet to Wynoochee pass, then down 1,000 feet to Graves Creek and then back up 1,000 feet to Sundown Lake. There is a way trail but I knew that Abra would not be up for it and my trail guide by Robert L Wood says the way trail is so rough that staying on the main path is actually easier.

I’m not sure why I thought we could do all that climbing in one day with an 11am start and 4 days worth of food on our backs, in the condition we were in.

Graves Creek seemed a better option for our first night, but my trail guide said the creek is dry this time of year. It had just rained though, so maybe there would be water down in that dark gorge?

Rough going on a trail in need of some TLC

World's tallest Mountain Hemlock tree near Wynoochee pass

I had camped at Graves Creek once before and I did not enjoy it much, it was too dark and creepy and I was a bit freaked out by the trip before we got to our campsite. I was with my reluctant 11 year old and the terrain was very rough and I was worried that we would have to turn back. That trip report is here: https://mosswalks.blogspot.com/2008/08/trip-over-olympic-mountains_16.html (link opens in a new window)

Just before we made it to the top of Wynoochee pass we were passed by Larry. Larry was headed for some off trail lakes up the six ridge trail. I told Larry about our plans to camp at Graves Creek and Larry encouraged us to camp in a meadow just below Wynoochee pass instead.

Before we ran into Larry we saw one other hiker, a day hike with a covid mask on headed back from his hike to Wynoochee pass. He warned us of a “headwall” on the way to the pass.

Eventually we made it to the headwall and we both got up it without too much trouble. I went up it with my pack and had Abra hand her pack up to me.

Wynoochee pass was lovely with a couple of nice little tarns at the top. We did not linger though since we were running short on time and were not sure where we would camp. We did not see any nice campsites at the pass.

On the other side of the pass we saw that Larry and gone to a lot of time and trouble to mark the route down to the meadow for us. Thank you Larry! We opted to not stay in the meadow though. The meadow looked damp and the route down to it seemed rough.

Onward we crawled down to Graves Creek and a campsite that I thought I remembered staying at before. I was off by a bit, I had stayed at Success Creek before.

Surprisingly, there were no established campsites at the bottom of the gorge where Wyshoochee Pass and Graves Creek trail meet and the sun was going to set in one hour. I hurriedly thrashed about in the brush looking for a flat spot to pitch the tarp.

Any flat spot would do. Abra labored to stay in my sight as I floundered up and down the river searching for camping. I checked out a meadow and my shoes got soaked, so the meadow was a no go. I was not happy and I became increasingly less happy as I looked for a flat spot of any kind to camp, it was getting late and we needed to camp. A few expletives flew out of my mouth. At least there was water down there so we would not die of thirst in the dank river bottom.

Finally I found a dreary but flat place just big enough for us to pitch the tarp. Next to our chosen tent site we found a nice open area on Graves Creek with great driftwood furniture to cook on. Our campsite was too small and dark to even cook in. But the open area next to the creek made this a nice camping spot after all.

Cooking area near Graves Creek

Dank camp spot that we found

old trail signs in need of repair at Graves Creek

In the night something kept running across the plastic sheets we had layed out under our tarp tent to keep the floor dry. We decided the creature must be a mouse and we named the creature “crinkle toes”. Eventually, I got up and tucked all the plastic neatly under our tent and we did not hear from crinkle toes again.

The creek made creepy noises all night long, but we got used to them and had very fitful and uncomfortable nights “sleep” in the dank gorge. I never sleep well next to creeks, they make too many random noises.

The next morning we got up, had a leisurely breakfast and started our hike up to Sundown Lake.

The hike up towards Sundown Lake was Lovely and the climbing went well. There were some downed logs and exposed spots that scared Abra, but we made okay time to the lake.

We had Sundown Lake all to ourselves for two nights. We saw a bear a few times and we picked lots of blueberries. We opted not to try for McGravy Lakes at all but really enjoyed our second unplanned night at Sundown.

On our second day at Sundown we made a side trip to Sundown Pass and the beautiful meadow below it. I want to camp there someday.

After two nights at Sundown we got up at about 7 am and had a quick breakfast and packed up for our trip back to the car. I had misplanned how much stove fuel we needed so I had to cook over a tiny campfire later in the trip. We started hiking out at 8:20am and made it back to the car at about 6pm. It was a very long day of hiking.

While driving back down to the dam on the dodgy road, we could hear gunshots and soon found a truck parked dead in the middle of the road with its occupants holding a long rifle with a site on top of it. They slowly packed up and left without even making eye contact with us. Welcome back to civilization… sigh...

We had a quick cup of coffee at the dam day use area and then drove home the long way through Montesano since Cougar-Smith Road was closed. I found the noise from crowds at the dam to be a bit disconcerting after so many days in the woods.

I’m ready to go backpacking again.

There were blueberries everywhere on our hike and we gorged ourselves on them every day.

According to Google Earth our trek including a side trip to Sundown Pass was 12.5 miles with 5,150 total elevation gain and loss the maximum grade was %45.5 percent and the average grade was %14.