Olympic Hot Springs: a walk back through time

The Elwha River runs north out of the Olympic Mountains to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, just west of Port Angeles. The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe describes itself as a sovereign, federally recognized Indian Nation that has lived in this area since time immemorial, in the lower Elwha valley and the bluffs along the coast.¹³

The hot springs sit on Boulder Creek, a tributary of the Elwha. The Park Service's historic resource study records that a settler first reported them in the early 1890s and came back in 1906 with a bottle of the water to prove it. A plan to develop them that year came to nothing.¹

In 1907 or 1908, a local settler and two companions on a hunting trip found the seeps again, on a narrow bench about 200 feet above Boulder Creek. They cut a rough trail up from the Elwha to the site at about 2,100 feet. The settler's family then built wooden tubs, dug mud baths into the hillside, and put up a cabin and a bathhouse.¹ The Court of Claims later described the springs as discovered in 1907 and developed under a Forest Service permit, since the land was then national forest.²

The springs opened to the public in 1909. A 1911 brochure listed several hot springs from 113 to 132 degrees Fahrenheit, plus cold ones, all on that one narrow bench.¹ In 1910 the City of Port Angeles, 21 miles north, applied to pipe the water to town for fountains, bathhouses and bottling. A permit was issued, but the study doubts the city ever used it.¹

Everything came in on horseback. Packers hauled machinery and supplies up from 1908 to 1913. The family built a dam and water wheel on Boulder Creek to make electricity, and a sawmill in 1909. Guests first slept in tents. A lodge with a dining room went up, along with a wooden pool 75 by 25 feet and a large bathhouse, and the first cabins replaced the tent frames in 1919.¹

The trail limited the crowds. The resort counted 1,100 guests in 1920, 850 in 1921 and 600 in 1922, while Sol Duc Hot Springs, which reopened in 1921, could be reached by car. Olympic Hot Springs was still an 11-mile ride or walk. By 1923 the site had a bathhouse with six tubs, dressing rooms, a store, room for 90 guests, and a truss bridge 80 feet above Boulder Creek.¹

Downstream, the river was being put to work. Construction of the Elwha Dam began in 1910, and it was working by 1913, powering a pulp mill in Port Angeles. By 1927 Glines Canyon Dam stood 8 miles upstream, and its reservoir became Lake Mills.⁴

Neither dam had fish passage. The Park Service writes that returning sea-run fish were left with only 5 miles of river, and that the dams had many impacts on the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe: areas of religious significance were flooded, and salmon runs of great spiritual and economic value were decimated.⁴

The road followed the dams. Army engineers built a bridge near Altair in 1924 to reach the Glines Canyon dam site, and by 1927 the road had been improved for dam construction.³ In 1930 Forest Service and Clallam County crews finished the road to the hot springs.¹ In the 1930s, a summer taxi ran round trips from Port Angeles to the resort for $3.75.¹

The resort grew with the road. A log hotel with a lobby, a dining room and 12 upstairs bedrooms opened in 1927. A new pool followed in 1930, and 10 more rooms in 1932. New and remodeled cabins came later in the decade, and by 1937 a new lodge stood at the end of a narrow, winding dirt road.¹ The family that ran it from 1924 kept it going for more than forty years.¹

In late January 1940, fire destroyed the main hotel. The same year, the Boulder Creek and Elwha area was added to Olympic National Park, which had been created in 1938, and the family began operating under Park Service permits and contracts. Their 1940 permit covered 10.96 acres.^1,2

The records differ on what came next. The Park Service study says the lodge was rebuilt right away.¹ The court record says the 20-bedroom hotel was never replaced, and describes the resort in its later years as 24 guest cabins, a two-story kitchen and dining building, bathhouses, and a concrete swimming and wading pool 41 by 133 feet.²

In 1954 the Public Health Service found that the untreated hot spring water in the pool did not meet health standards. The pool was converted in 1958, and the Park Service ultimately required fresh water in the pools.² The Park Service study says the treatment requirement caused a substantial decline in business.¹

The family was told on August 22, 1966 that their contract would not be renewed. The court record lists the Park Service's reasons: returning the area to its natural condition, terrain too steep for a resort, deficiencies in the facilities, steady losses since 1961, and competition from a public pool built in Port Angeles in the mid-1950s. It also records that the Park Service did not intend to continue commercial operation of the springs through any concessionaire.² The resort closed to the public in 1966.¹

Heavy snow caved in roofs in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In late 1972 the Park Service surveyed every structure for removal, and over the following months 18 buildings, the main lodge and the pool were torn down. Only traces remain.¹

For most of the century, the drive to the hot springs ran past a lake. Lake Mills filled the valley behind Glines Canyon Dam, and the road climbed above it to viewpoints like Observation Point. Around 1930 an auto camp near the Elwha ranger station offered pack trips up the valley and boat trips on Lake Mills.¹

In 1992, Congress passed the Elwha River Ecosystem and Fisheries Restoration Act, Public Law 102-495, which authorized the Interior Department to buy both dams and restore the river.⁴ After two decades of planning, the Park Service writes, the largest dam removal in U.S. history began on September 17, 2011. The Elwha Dam was gone six months later, and Glines Canyon Dam followed in 2014.⁵

The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe calls it the first large-scale dam removal in history. The Tribe writes that the reservoirs had flooded about 715 acres, that the dams blocked fish from more than 70 miles of upstream habitat, and that restoration work continues after the dams.¹⁴

The road above the Glines Canyon Spillway Overlook was closed from 2010 to 2015 during dam removal. Below the old dam, the road had seen highs of about 900 vehicles a day.³

With the dams gone, the river took back a former channel that matched the road near the Elwha Campground. In 2015 the park put in two temporary bridges, and floods badly damaged the Elwha and Altair campgrounds, which were closed. Floods in 2017 meant two more temporary bridges. By summer 2018 the park limited the road to administrative use, and in autumn 2018 it pulled the bridges out before winter high water.³

Today the Elwha road is closed to vehicles at the Madison Falls Trailhead. Visitors walk or bike 9 miles on Olympic Hot Springs Road, using a bypass trail around the washout, then hike the last 1.5 miles on foot.^7,8 The park describes the springs as natural, unmaintained hot water seeps in a wilderness area, not tested or treated, and used at your own risk.⁷

The Park Service studied options for restoring road access in a 2019 environmental assessment. Its project page lists that plan as on hold.^3,6