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      PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION

      In 1989, Bill Hoke mailed a postcard to Bob Wood asking for directions for a proposed hike in the Olympic Mountains. Back came the first of dozens of multi-page letters from Bob detailing hikes, making suggestions for routes and, over the years, forging a friendship. When Bob began revisions for the third edition of Olympic Mountains Trail Guide, and it became apparent that health challenges would keep him from trail checking, he enlisted the assistance of “four Bills” and Bill Hoke felt honored to be among those helping.

      The third edition was published in 2000 and Bob died in 2003. By 2006, first efforts were initiated to begin work on the fourth edition, but it was clear that updating and checking every trail, and adding new ones—much less keeping track of dam removals, road closures, and new road numbering—would take a team effort. The Peninsula Wilderness Club and Doug Savage came to the rescue and, by 2016, trail checking began in earnest.

      When Doug Savage moved to the Olympic Peninsula, he took his first sortie into the Olympic Mountains as a totally unprepared novice. Those novice hikes would lead to many more. It wasn’t too long before Doug stumbled by accident across the Peninsula Wilderness Club, a social organization that promotes safe and fun backpacking and mountaineering on the Olympic Peninsula. They quickly taught him the necessity of researching his excursions and introduced him to the second edition of the Olympic Mountains Trail Guide. Many of the old-timers back then referred to it as “the Bible of Olympic Trails,” or just OMTG. The book proved invaluable to planning all kinds of trips, from day hikes to trans-Olympic crossings. Doug has spent the last thirty-plus years of his life hiking and climbing in the Olympics, with OMTG always his go-to reference for planning. When Bill Hoke and Mountaineers Books asked the Peninsula Wilderness Club to assist in the editing of the fourth addition, Doug joined with enthusiasm. And when the club asked him to lead the editing efforts in the edition, Doug said he felt almost unworthy.

      A lot has changed since Bob Wood first conceived OMTG: trails have been built or lost, roads closed or added, and floods, fires and erosion have changed the landscape. Where sixty years ago a hiker crossed a fresh clear-cut, there now stands a maturing forest. Changing Bob’s text almost felt blasphemous. With that in mind we approached the fourth edition with the attitude that we would try hard not to change the original text. Bill Hoke’s interest in the revised edition was, first and foremost, to preserve Bob’s voice, and the new team agreed we would be cautious in making any changes and would, in every case, do everything possible to see that it remained Bob’s book. Only if a third edition trail description was inaccurate would we alter it to be relevant. For this fourth edition, maps were updated, driving directions verified, and road numbers checked. New trails, twenty-nine in total, have been added. As best we could we tried to follow in Bob’s style. We have a great trust to keep.

      —Bill Hoke and Doug Savage

      PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION

      Like its predecessors in 1984 and 1991, this third edition of Olympic Mountains Trail Guide is intended to serve not only as a field guide to hiking the trails of the Olympic Mountains but also as a reference work to consult at home. Although written primarily for hikers and backpackers who are not well acquainted with the Olympics and are therefore seeking ideas about where and when to go, the book can be used by persons familiar with the region and also by armchair adventurers who desire to explore the country the easy way—by reading about it when lounging beside the fireplace on a cold winter evening. I have attempted to describe the roads and trails in helpful language; I have also endeavored to answer the questions invariably expressed by hikers or backpackers: Why go there? Why hike a particular trail?

      Essentially, the book has been distilled from my intimate acquaintance with the Olympics during the last half-century. I do not know how many miles I have walked in these mountains, but they number in the thousands. I went on my first hike in 1948, and a year later made my initial backpacking trip. Since then I have hiked, backpacked, and climbed in the Olympics every year, during all seasons, and in all kinds of weather. I have often repeated trips a number of times because I find that hiking familiar trails is much like wearing a comfortable pair of old shoes.

      I have also walked many miles—often alone, but usually with companions—beyond the trails, traveling cross-country through forested valleys and canyons, along windswept ridges, and across pathless meadows. I have stood upon the summits of many of the higher peaks a

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