There are so many places in this great big country that still feel raw. Sure, logging is big up on the Olympic Peninsula and the land has been manipulated and utilized. There are mazes of gravel logging roads crisscrossing the mountains, and those make for good gravel exploring. This ride wound around some of them and highlighted two cool bridges, Lake Cushman, and miles of trees.
We started out by the Vance Creek Bridge and rode the gravel path out to see the defunct bridge. The Vance Creek Bridge is an arch bridge built for a logging railroad owned by the Simpson Logging Company in 1929. At 347 feet in height, it is the second-highest railroad arch in the United States after the nearby High Steel Bridge. It was decommissioned in the 1970s, during the decline of logging on the Olympic Peninsula. This one is impassable but still neat to look at.
After backtracking to the road we road through miles of forested roads and dropped down into the canyon. We passed through Browns Creek Campground and climbed a very steep gravel road up and out of the valley. This next part was a series of very nice forest roads with nobody! We took a side trip for a break at the lake and then finished our loop with a ride over High Steel Bridge.
The High Steel Bridge is a truss arch bridge that spans the south fork of the Skokomish River. The bridge is 685 feet long, and its deck is 375 feet above the river making it the highest railroad bridge in the US! Built in 1929, the bridge originally carried a rail line whose construction made logging operations possible in new areas of the Olympic Peninsula. It is narrow but on bikes we were able to stop in the middle and spend considerable time looking around and down.
We completed our loop and stopped by Hardware Distillery to sample some Aquavit. Their Aquavit is based on their pear vodka with pears from Yakima. Jan, one of the owners, chatted with us about the process and history. Aquavit is a holiday treat in Scandinavia. It is one of the older liquors, and there are records of aquavit dating back to the 16th century. Like many of the older spirits, it was named “Aqua Vite” for “water of life” and was considered to have medicinal properties. We tasted the traditional Aquavit, Dill Aquavit, and Cardamom Aquavit. She even treated us to a Norski cocktail sample. I HIGHLY recommend stopping in here if you are in Hoodsport.
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