Cummins Creek Loop Hike

Overview

The 9,000-acre Cummins Creek Wilderness has only one official trail that goes through it: this is the is Cummins Ridge Trail which bisects the wilderness by running the ridge crest along its spine. However, if you want to see the some of the massive old-growth spruce for which the wilderness is known, you’ll have to take another route. The official trails on the loop described here stay out of the wilderness, but an unofficial trail which begins near the trailhead will take you down into the wilderness and Cummins Creek itself. There are big Sitka Spruce down here as well as soggy bogs and confusing elk trails! To make a longer day out of it, continue on the regular trails. There’s one viewpoint, but also many more massive old-growth trees (Douglas-fir and western hemlock in addition to Sitka spruce), especially as you descend the Gwynn Creek Trail. The trail follows the road bed of FR 1050 in secondary western hemlock/Sitka spruce woodland with an understory of salal, sword fern, and evergreen huckleberry. Dip to cross a trickling creek, and notice side trails to some campsites on the right. About 350 yards from the trailhead, reach the unsigned Cummins Creek-Cummins Creek Wilderness Trail Junction, and go right down this trail. The trail, lined with deer fern and also on an old road bed, almost immediately enters the Cummins Creek Wilderness although there is no sign to inform you of the fact. Descend the slope, and cross a small creek to reach a junction. A short trail leads right to your first encounter with Cummins Creek: before reaching the bottomland itself, look for a more indistinct trail leading left – this will be your return if you’re doing the bushwhack loop described. You can continue up the creek on a user tread that swishes through large sword ferns and involves clambering over a fallen alder. The trail briefly becomes better defined before it turns away from the creek around a massive fallen spruce. Where the creek braids at a gravel bar, pass the Three Guardians, a trio of large Sitka spruc

Trail Stats

Photos

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