Early June 2024 hike to Buckhorn Lake in Olympic National Forest. This was a hefty hike. The All Trails app reports that I used 3767 calories. Add to that my >25 lbs. pack/stuff — it was a real workout.
I had charted our route on All Trails. At one point, we came to a fork in the trail. Our charted path was straight on, but the well-traveled path was up to the right. Well, stubborn me, my charted route was straight-ahead, straight-ahead we went! And that despite a quick look at the route on the app showing that the more-travelled route was much less steep (switch-backs) albeit a considerably longer route that joined our route further along.
The straight-ahead route was the hardest part of the trail. Much of this section passes through a huge (steep) meadow. This photo is just a hint at how large and steep the meadow is.
![One view along our steeper route](https://scott-gregson.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/DSC_06_13_24-16138-683x1024.jpg)
At the lake, we saw many brook trout and just a remnant of snow.