News Release

Graves Creek Road in Quinault Valley Reopened to Vehicle Access

One of three washout repairs on Graves Creek Road completed with logs and rock ballast.

NPS Photo

News Release Date: September 27, 2019

Contact: Penny Wagner, 360-565-3005

The Olympic National Park road crew completed repairs to three washouts on the Quinault Valley’s Graves Creek Road. The road is now open to vehicle access.

The road repairs involved the placement of large logs along the length of the embankments, with the rootwads facing into the stream to encourage the development of fish habitat. Rock ballast was placed to secure the logs and prevent buoyancy. The gravel road was rebuilt overtop the logs which were salvaged from previous projects in the park.

Graves Creek Road is a six-mile long gravel road that runs from the intersection of the North and South Shore roads to the Graves Creek Trailhead. The road sustained damage during the last two years of winter storms and the repairs were critical to maintaining vehicle access to the area.

The cost for the road repair project was $140,000 and was funded through the Federal Lands Transportation Program (FLTP) of the Federal Highway Administration. The FLTP funds projects that improve access within federal lands (national forests, national parks, national wildlife refuges, national recreation areas, and other federal public lands) on transportation facilities in the national Federal Lands transportation inventory, and owned and maintained by the federal government.

For information about visiting Olympic National Park, visitors should consult the park website at http://www.nps.gov/olym.