COX VALLEY TRAIL

Abandoned trail, no longer maintained 
Length 2.0 mi/3.2 km 
Access Obstruction Point Road 
USGS Map Mount Angeles 
Agency Olympic National Park

All that is left of the old Morse Creek Trail, this route leads down 
into Cox Valley, the upper part of the valley of Morse Creek. In the 
early 1900s, A. E. Cox homesteaded one of the "grass parks" on the 
south side of Mount Angeles, and a friend took a claim on a similar 
opening in the forest. The men first used the old "government" trail 
(the route of Lieutenant O'Neil's 1885 reconnaissance), but they later 
built a trail up Morse Creek-a path that "climbed to greater heights and 
more of them than any other ever built in the county." Cox used the trail 
in connection with his duties as county game warden.

The trail begins on the Obstruction Point Road, 0.6-mi/1.0 km east of 
Big Meadow. The trailhead (4870 ft/1484 m) is not marked, but the path 
starts on the north side of the road, opposite a board nailed to a tree.

As it switchbacks down the mountainside, the trail goes through a stand 
of large sub alpine fir, then crosses a meadow where the hiker can look 
down the valley and see the Cascades in the distance. The route now 
alternately traverses forests and a succession of meadows, where the path 
is indistinct, marked in places by pieces of tin tacked to posts. The trees 
are mostly silver fir, Alaska cedar, and sub alpine fir. The trail crosses 
a stream twice, then just beyond a campsite (1.0 mi/1.6 km) crosses another 
and comes out into a large meadow. The slope to the left is overgrown with 
dense, impenetrable thickets of slide alder. Burnt Mountain looms ahead: 
Klahhane Ridge is visible to the northeast. The careful observer may spot 
mountain goats on the cliffs, and one can hear automobiles driving up the 
Hurricane Ridge Road.

The trail goes through a fringe of forest, then out into another large 
meadow (2.0 mi/3.2 km; ca. 3600 ft/1097 m) where, for all practical purposes, 
it ends. Of course it once traversed the length of Morse Creek Valley as far 
as the national park boundary before it was rendered obsolete by the new 
Hurricane Ridge Road. Now, however, the seldom-used route-marked by an 
occasional ribbon-is virtually nonexistent beyond this meadow. In fact, 
it docs not rise to the dignity of a way trail, although now and then one 
can find a tag on a tree.