It's been a busy Sunday for me again, so I couldn't find time to write my weekly hiking post until late afternoon. But here we are, the hiking post continues. Also, I'm happy to see that ~alter_native is still active. I don't know when the territory will get archived, but I will continue to post my weekly hiking posts here until it gets archived.

This week we head back to Olympic National Park of Olympic Peninsula and visit the Devil's Punchbowl via the Spruce Railroad Trail. The Spruce Railroad Trail itself is a 18km out-and-back trail that follows the coast along Lake Crescent from Piedmont to Ovington. However, we only walked a short section of the trail, past the first train tunnel to see Devil's Punchbowl and headed back. Most of the trail we walked were either paved or very flat with little gravel, so the trail (at least the section we were on) seemed very accessible. The so called "punchbowl" seemed to be a small section of Lake Crescent that was cut off by a bridge and surrounded on the three remaining sides by land.

Trailhead.

They still like to hold my hand at the time. They don't do that anymore.

Trail mostly follows Lake Crescent. Trail is flat and paved.

Seeing Lake Crescent along the trail behind the trees.

We reached the first train tunnel. I believe there are multiple tunnels along the full trail, but we only went through this first tunnel.

First sections of the tunnel was reinforced by metal. This picture gives off the feeling that we were entering another world.

Deeper in the tunnel was quite dark, so we had to turn on our phone's flashlights. This section was not reinforced with metal, so you can see the bare rocks.

We turned back after exiting the tunnel to see Lake Crescent's beautiful view.

My son admiring the view.

Heading back through a bridge. I think the section of water to the left of the bridge in this photo is the Devil's Punchbowl.

We caught sight of an Arbutus menziesii AKA Pacific Madrone. This tree is commonly seen in the Pacific Northwest and is known for shedding its bark.

A better look at the Devil's Punchbowl. In this photo, to the right of the bridge.

We caught sight of a sign reciting the poem Morning Rain by Tu Fu, an ancient Chinese Poet.

One last look at Lake Crescent from the parking lot before we drive away.

Check out my previous hikes: