Cox Valley Trail [ref]For search-purposes: Park, WIC Wilderness Information Center literature may use the term “Cox Valley Primitive Trail”.[/ref] is a short (1.8 mi), deadend path set in the subalpine high-country of north-central Olympic National Park. It is road-accessible, in summer.
The Cox Valley Trailhead is a small, undeveloped pullout located about 0.6 miles down the rudimentary Obstruction Point Road, which begins near the north end of the Hurricane Ridge Recreation Area parking lot. This pullout is on a mild, comfortable stretch along this sometimes hair-raising old mountain road. An enjoyable place to stop, in its own right. Other informal & undesignated pullouts are common along the narrow road. A small sign identifies the trailhead.
Many are aware of this trail, because they see the sign as they motor slowly past it on their way to popular Obstruction Point, but relatively few hike it.
Although an enjoyable walk, first down a steep slope through a closed stand of small subalpine timber, then through small, valley-bottom meadows, the Cox Valley venue lacks marquee features to draw the attention of the casual recreationist, or to tempt the robust mountaineering-type. Still, it does have its claim-to-fame & sources of interest. [ref]Though at high enough elevation to be natural meadow, these are surrounded by healthy forest and have excellent soil: it should be borne in mind that they could be Native Prairie sites … and indeed, early homesteaders did go directly to these nice openings in the woods.[/ref]
Cox Valley was the site of a homestead, in the early years of the 20th C., before roads or even a modern trail-system in the Olympic Mountains. This valley is the headwaters of Morse Creek, which occupies an impressive canyon on the north periphery of the Olympic: today, Hurricane Ridge Road ascends along the left canyon-wall. Though not intrusive, the main road can be seen from the valley below.
The homesteaders built a trail up the creek, the mostly long-gone Morse Creek Abandoned Trail, and our Cox Valley Trail is the far upper-end fragment of it. If one continues on down, past the meadows in the valley and into the forest beyond, parts of the old trail can be found where it is protected under the trees. The first fragments of trail-tread are wide & well-engineered: this is almost certainly not the original tread, and these good-quality artifacts soon themselves come to an end.
The original Morse Creek Trail would not have received much excavation & engineering, and being lightly-made, most of it reverted & disappeared. Over the decades & generations, though, individuals & institutions have kept track of where it once lay … of the pieces & fragments that can still be discerned, which connect-the-dots fashion show where it once was … and where it could be once again, if it were so decided.
It appears that at some point in relatively modern times, a project was indeed begun, to rebuild & upgrade the old Morse Creek Trail, (or to completely replace it on a better route) but that this was discontinued while still at an early stage. The easily-found & followed stretch of wide, nicely-cut trail-base now abandoned in the forest below the meadows could have been constructed in a span of a few days, by a modest crew. They no more than barely got going, and then they stopped.
A very similar piece of needle-carpeted, well-made but short, abandoned trail can be found further down the Morse Creek Canyon. On Hurricane Ridge Road, at the Lookout Rock Viewpoint, stepping into the trees past the parking reveals the identical kind of trail-artifact. Lookout Rock is on the main ridge-crest, which forms a good natural route down into Morse Creek Canyon.
Down the ridge-line a ways from Lookout Rock there is a natural juncture at which a trail can branch; one going upstream into the Canyon, and other down-country toward the deadend trails near the Heart O’ the Hills Entrance … which itself is a fragment of the former trail system which the Cox Valley homesteaders would have used.
If the abandoned Lookout Rock trail was part of the same project as the Cox Valley work (and perhaps another piece at Heart O’ the Hills?), then that would tell us that the project took place after the modern Hurricane Ridge Road was built. These two pieces of short trail-construction do indeed look very much the same.
In winter, Obstruction Point Road is not plowed, and closes for the season. However, both informal and organized cross-country ski and snow-shoe activities are known to use the closed road as a nice subalpine winter travel route. The snow-paths they develop may give ready access to the trailhead … although the trailhead sign will be deeply buried, and Cox Valley Trail will be under yards of snow.
** Though at high enough elevation to be natural meadow, these are surrounded by healthy forest and have excellent soil: it should be borne in mind that they could be Native Prairie sites … and indeed, early homesteaders went straight for these nice openings in the woods.