OLYMPIC HOT SPRINGS TRAIL

Length 2.7 mi/4.4 km 
Access Elwha River Road 
USGS Map Mount Carrie 
Agency Olympic National Park

This path leads to the hot springs from the end of the Boulder Creek 
section of the Elwha River Road. Before the road was built, the trail 
was about 15 miles long and followed the Elwha River and Boulder Creek.

The trail begins where the Elwha River Road now ends (1700 ft/518 m) 
and follows the closed portion of the old road to what was formerly 
an automobile parking lot. Nearby is the walk-in Boulder Creek. Campground 
(2.2 mi/3.5 km; 2200 ft/671 m), which is unique because it is the only 
walk-in campground in the park. Beyond the former parking area the path 
follows the north side of Boulder Creek a short distance before crossing 
the stream, where it reverses its direction 180 degrees in order to go 
down the south bank to the hot springs (2.7 mi/4.3 km; 2100 ft/ 640 m), 
where several pools of warm water are located.

Olympic Hot Springs were discovered in 1892 by Andrew Jacobsen, but they 
were almost inaccessible for many years because no trails or roads penetrated 
the country. In the early 1900s William Everett acquired the location 
rights and blazed a trail to the springs. With the assistance of the Forest 
Service, the county built a road to the site in the 1930s. Everett and 
Harry Schoeffel developed a resort, and it became the most popular one in 
Clallam County. Eventually it declined, and everything is gone now. Only 
the hot pools arc left.

Geologists are uncertain of the mechanism that has produced the Olympic 
Hot Springs. They do lie on a fault, and it is probable that breaks in 
the rock structure permit the water-which chemically resembles surface 
water-to circulate down toward the hot interior of the earth.