This whole area up on the Olympic Peninsula is new to us. I was here as a little girl before but don’t remember anything and Derek has never been here. So, like much of our last 5 years on the road, everything is new and an adventure. We saw on the Trailforks app that there are a lot of trails in the Port Gamble area which is just across the Hood Canal. Day trip! We drove about an hour to the Port Gamble Forest Heritage Park trail network. There are almost 50 miles of trails here and we put together a fun mix.
The Port Gamble Forest Heritage Park history starts back in 2007 when Pope Resources (now Rayonier) announced they would be selling off their timber holdings in North Kitsap. What was once Port Gamble S’Klallam and Suquamish tribal land with thousands of years of history, and then a Pope timber tree farm for the past 160 years, was now for sale. The community sprang into action and wrote the North Kitsap Trails Plan. An astounding $11,685,000 was raised from a variety of sources through partnerships developed through Forterra, the S’Klallam and Suquamish Tribes, Kitsap County and of course Pope Resources. $3,300,000 of that money came from individual donors from the local community!
Our ride was a mix of singletrack strung together by short sections of logging road. There aren’t any huge climbs but there are plenty of smaller short climbs and the elevation racks up. Our ride had just under 1500′ and could easily have been more. That’s the nice thing about this network. So many trails make loops of varying distances possible. Our favorite trails were Derailed, which was a flowy downhill trail with plenty of giant berms and rollers, and Wild West which had a nice twisty dive into the ravines and jungle terrain of the area.
I highly recommend these trails and we’ll be back to ride more. Since we were over here, we stopped in Poulsbo to go to the famous Sluys Poulsbo Bakery. This has been around since 1966!!!!! We waited in line for donuts and a fantastic creation called a Viking Cup (pictured below). So good! This of course made us thirsty so we stopped in at Echoes Brewery for some beers.
Perfect day!
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