Olympic National Forest — Attraction in Shelton

We hiked from the Tubal Cain trailhead to Buckhorn lake and back overnight. It was my wife's first back-country experience and she was blown away by the beauty of it -- although I would say not at the same level as Enchantments or Glacier. We did not go to Buckhorn pass or peak. The Lake was gorgeous and there are fish to catch. We went on Independence day weekend, thinking there might be less people, but there were many. We almost did not get a camping spot at the lake. There are about 15 spots to camp, and they were all taken except a "hidden" spot at the end of the lake. I almost had to bear-spray some off-leash dogs. Other people are definitely the worst part of this trail, but it was still absolutely worth doing. There are black-bears in the area but we saw no sign of them. We heard coyote and elk, but did not see them. There's plenty of water in the first half of the trail until it crosses the Copper Creek at the valley floor, 3.5mi, then nothing until you hit the lake. On a warm day, make sure you have at least a 1L for this stretch. There is a shortcut that takes almost a mile off the distance, but it is much steeper, we wished we had taken the long gradual route, which we did on the way out -- much better. Even with Buckhorn lake at capacity, nobody was camped at the myriad and numerous spots at the copper-creek crossing at 3.5 mi. This is where the stem trail goes up to the copper mine -- a side-quest worth doing. If you hammock-camp there are even more diverse options in this area (and maybe a few more at the lake, too). Mosquitos were not a huge issue when we went, but i could see it being much worse -- plan for this. We did not go to the B17 crash site, it is quite a climb, and definitely optional especially for those seeking a relatively mild hiking experience. We had planned on experiencing the Alpine meadows at Buckhorn pass, but there were plenty on the second half of the trail, so we did not trek up to the pass -- another optional but probably worth-it side-quest if you want to add more elevation gain to your experience. This hike would be 5 stars if there were less people. Of course, we're not from the Puget Sound region so this probably would not be considered "crowded" to people used life in...

Everything im going to say from now on will be real, back in 2006 me and my ex roomate went here for a hike just to clear our minds we started from seattle and arrived there in a bit of time with my camper we decided to pass the night there so we settled everything up so before going to sleep we decide to do a little trip so we started to walk and after the second mile we decided to go back to sleep becose it was getting a bit late so we headed back to our place the more the sun was getting down the spookier That hell of a place got but as it started to look bad for us we finally got back to our place, and after having a meal we started to sleep, after a few hour I woke up I looked at the time on my phone and it was around 3:50 AM I had to pee so I got up got around a tree and started doing my thing as I finished I started to hear a strange sound like if someone was whistling turned around to see a light held by god knows who, we still had the fire going on so the person could easily see us, u know when u was a kid and ur parents left u home alone and u was a bit scared I didn't had that feeling I was a lot more scared than that so I rushed back to my buddy to wake him up and to tell him to get is glock out, we rapidly extinguished the fire and as we started to step back the whistle stopped and all i could hear was my heart beating really fast as I took another step I tripped over a rock and in that moment the man revealed his self or at least the body I couldn't see nothing of his face, he started running towards us and my roomate tried to shoot him twice but the man continued to run as if nothing happened so my "friend" transformed into Usane Bolt and started to run for his life while leaving me there, as the man got near to me I was in total shock he pointed his gun at me and before I knew it the the gun shot me, I then opened my eyes to find my self inside my tent and understood that it was all a dream; from then on I never stepped back in...

I know it's a working forest but they've taken it too far this time. Your lucky if you see a deer or Eagles flying over, they've logged out so much that there's nowhere for the wildlife to live and their food source is down to almost nothing like us humans. They've blocked off many of the roads so people can't see half of the forest or what's left of it. There's trash everywhere you look, it's from the kids going up there and having parties and fires then they leave a big mess behind and the visitors and homeless people get blamed for it. DNR hasn't been doing much of anything the roads have downed trees across them and you have to turn around. It's a mess right now and the main road is caving in and becoming more narrow than before making it dangerous to drive on you could end up in the river. People still go there and shoot their guns and drive around although it's supposed to be closed. Forest service only picks on people who are tired and just want a couple hours of sleep yet others get away with everything else. The forest isn't being managed very well in my opinion, I used to love going there but...