Elwha

Elwa- Old Altair Campground to Elwha river road bridge.

Three packrafters out for the day, Madison Falls trailhead parking lot for the put in at 11am and took out at 5pm (6ish) hours including hiking to the put in, lunch, two longer portages (wood obstacle upper section, dam rapid- lower section) and one short wood portage (man-made log jam area). Elwha river gauge at Mcdonald bridge was 1060 cfs in medium runnable range.

Put in: Parked at Madison Falls trail head parking lot (has a pit toilet) which is the farthest you can travel with your vehicle. Hiked about 4 miles on the old park road and hiking trails to the old Olympic hot springs road bridge that spans the Elwha near the Altair Campground. There is some new signage indicating where to leave the road and take the hiking path. After crossing the bridge, we hiked down below the bridge on river left, to a gravel bar area directly under the bridge, and put in there.

Rafting at this gauge level was fun although the river is fairly braided, and decisions, regarding which channel to take, are frequent. Rapids, were in the 2+ sometimes three range with the major goal of scanning for wood. The first instance of river spanning wood requires a long-ish portage and the take out (48.02639, -123.59067) is indicated by a lone standing trees, see photos.

Passing under the large, high Highway 101 bridge you will see signs warning of upcoming man-made, log jams. River left channels might be a better choice. We chose river right channels, and needed to take out here (48.06988, -123.57902) for a short portage of channel spanning wood. Apparently the log-jams are working.

Between this section and the damn rapid, there is more channelization as well as narrowing of the canyon. We elected to portage around the dam rapid (one hour- break down, hike, re-inflate). The river is absent any signs that warn of the upcoming rapid. If you look to River left as the canyon, walls close in and become vertical, you will see remnants of something man-made that looks like framing, and signage debris and that is where you can take out (48.09449, -123.55859) to portage around (hike up and over the old dam rock buttress).

The remainder of the paddle to the Elwha River Road bridge take out had no major obstacles with the exception of the weir, which can be floated over on River left.

Wildlife today included, many eagles, ducks, geese, kingfishers, and one river otter happily munching on fish catch.

Take out: at the Elwha River Road bridge (also the bridge for the Olympic discovery bike trail) accessed by taking crown Z road down to a small park underneath the bridge (no toilets at river level).

With the new bridge and construction there is an easy take out access on river left just above the old bridge. Not sure how well River right works now with the construction debris.

In 2024 Washington DOT opened the new Elwha River Bridge on Highway 101. The pilings of the old bridge were sitting on top of alluvial material and the bridge had to be replaced. American Whitewater advocated for an area to park and a place to access the river at the site of the old Elwha Resort where the bridge is located had a take out for rafters at the head of the former reservoir.

From Tom Diegel

Hiked up from the Madison Falls TH up the road, onto the bypass trail, back to the road, across on the bridge to RL, and up to the old dam site.  Nice view into the gorge, and then there's a small trail that goes for another 3/4 of a mile into the old reservoir bottoms and an obvious spot to walk over to the river's edge.  The rapid at the old dam site is fun and kinda sporty class 4ish.  There's a terrible log jam a ways downriver, but you can scout a nice takeout above it from where the bypass trail comes back to the road.  It's nice swiftwater back to the Madison Falls TH, where you can take out (a quick run) or carry on down into the nice lower section.

This is a fun packraft trip with easy logistics. The Madison Falls Trailhead was busy on a Thursday morning with people enjoying the river and hiking or biking up the road. We hiked up the road and took the bypass trail where the river has cut through the road on the approximately 4 mile hike up to the Glines Canyon Dam site. After checking out the overlook at footprint of the former reservoir, we backtracked to the river access located at the historic Glines Canyon Powerhouse.

It took a little over an hour to hike up to the Glines Canyon dam site, an hour to experience the place and then inflate our boats, and about an hour and a half to float back down to the access at the gage station.

It was a good flow for the run but we had to exercise caution as we approached the segment where the old campground was located and the river has cut through the road prism. We encountered several channel-spanning trees in this section that required a portage. These were the only major wood hazards on the run although there were several other places where caution is warrnted with wood along the sides and in some cases extending into the main current.

The access road to the put in at Glines Canyon washed out (a couple of years ago) and is still gated. No vehicle access upstream of Madison Falls Trailhead. ~3.5 road-miles from the gate to the put-in from what I can tell.

Packrafted from the old powerhouse site to Madison Falls TH on 1/9/2022. Beautiful run, cool seeing the river reclaim its floodplain, and had fun weaving our way down the rapids above the Altair bridge.

The road is closed beyond the Madison falls TH. It's a four mile hike from the TH to the old powerhouse site. Most of it is road walking with the exception of a mile of some pretty hiking trail that takes you by some impressive old growth trees.

We did have a half mile long portage on the way down. The river splits near the upstream road washout where the bypass trail ends. The left channel was almost entirely dewatered at 2000cfs. The right channel, which you can see as you hike the bypass trail, had a few riverwide strainers. We chose to hike the left channel's dried out riverbed until another creek came in that contributed just enough water to scrape our way down to where the right channel reconnected. Next time, we may try portaging along the old section of road stranded by the two washouts.

Site visit to view Elwha River access sites.

Removal of Glines Canyon Dam underway

Exploring Glines Canyon prior to dam removal.

Hydropower Reform Coalition meeting and site visit to the Elwha River.

There is a log down in the lower part of Fisherman's bend. It blocks the center and right portion of the right channel. There is a clear route to the left of the log, but the difficulty of the run is increased because the main flow of the river goes directly into the log's root ball. It is visible from the road on the way to the put in.