Qualla: Spruce Railroad Trail

Spruce Railroad Trail: Introduction

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Robert Ashworth from Bellingham, WA., USA, CC BY 2.0. The railroad was finished in 1919, one year after the armistice silenced the guns it was meant to feed. Spruce was the miracle wood of early aviation -- light, strong, flexible enough to absorb the shock of landing on a grass strip -- and the U.S. Army's Spruce Production Division needed vast quantities of it from the old-growth forests of the Olympic Peninsula. So they punched a rail line along the shores of Lake Crescent, blasting tunnels through solid rock and laying track above water so impossibly blue it looks dyed. By the time the last spike was driven, the Great War was over. The railroad hauled timber for another three decades before it, too, fell silent in 1951.

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Image: Robert Ashworth from Bellingham, WA., USA | CC BY 2.0

Spruce Railroad Trail: Through the Mountain's Bones

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Thejrudd, CC BY-SA 4.0. Two railroad tunnels define the trail's character. The McFee Tunnel stretches 450 feet through the headland, a passage blasted during World War I that spent decades sealed and forgotten after railroad operations ended. When the tunnels were closed, tradition says they were delibe...

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Image: Thejrudd | CC BY-SA 4.0

Spruce Railroad Trail: Lake Crescent's Impossible Blue

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Robert Ashworth from Bellingham, WA., USA, CC BY 2.0. The lake beside the trail is the real draw. Lake Crescent sits in a glacially carved basin about twenty miles west of Port Angeles, its waters so deep and clear they refract light into shades of vivid turquoise and cobalt. The trail hugs the northern shore for roughly four miles,...

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Image: Robert Ashworth from Bellingham, WA., USA | CC BY 2.0

Spruce Railroad Trail: Spruce and the War in the Air

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Why spruce? In 1917, airplane fuselages and wings were built from wood, and Sitka spruce was the finest aircraft timber available -- stronger per pound than any alternative, with a straight grain that resisted splitting under stress. The western Olympic Peninsula held the contine...

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Image: Public domain

Spruce Railroad Trail: The Trail Reborn

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Robert Ashworth from Bellingham, WA., USA, CC BY 2.0. After the railroad was abandoned in 1951, the grade slowly rewilded. Ferns colonized the ballast. Moss softened the tunnel mouths. Hikers discovered it informally, picking their way around the sealed tunnels on steep, unofficial scrambles. The formal conversion to a public trail ...

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Image: Robert Ashworth from Bellingham, WA., USA | CC BY 2.0