Hughes Gorge

A neat little gorge with fern filled pillow basalt walls. Best done as an out and back to the waterwall that flows through a slot.

Please park where signage permits. Take extra caution to stay on trail for first the 0.4 miles, due to narrow easement through private property. Simply hike along the West Elwha Trail till you hike the bridge that crosses Hughes Creek then turn upstream to start hiking in the gorge.

The best pay to play ratio for this gorge hike/scramble when you reach a 35ish foot waterfall that falls through a slot. About a dozen minor falls and scrambles required to reach this point. The best season is currently a best guess since I'm not sure about how well the flow in this drainage correlates with the Elwha gauge. If you want to keep going past this fall or rappel the waterfall(plenty of logs to rappel for anchor material), I did include a bypass route we used in the GPX/KML. The route does have some neat Unicorn Horn, Unicorn Peak, and Mt Baldy. We didn't bring the gear to rappel the drop but I'd estimate that the falls are about 35-45ft rappel (depending on which log is used).