The Harold Engles Memorial Grove Trail is an easy family hike and can usually be accessed from mid-spring to late fall. During rain spells expect the trail to be soft in areas though not too muddy.

You start your hike in mixed forest with an array of wildflowers, then wind to a grove of ancient cedar trees standing like gentle wooden giants. The largest of these trees has a plaque memorializing Harold Engels, the legendary early Darrington District Ranger and a gentle giant of a man himself.  Continuing  past this impressive grove arrive at a trail junction, where the right branch will take you to nice river views including a few titans that fell in the 2006 floods.  Continuing on the left branch leads you back to the beginning of the trail.

Who was Harold Engles? He served as Darrington District Ranger for many years.  He was a man familiar and at home in the woods or mountains and hiked and climbed up into his late eighties. He is best known for his early ascent of Three Fingers Mountain, elevation 6,870 feet with Harry Bedal in search of an appropriate Fire lookout site.  It was Harold who fought to preserve this grove of giants.  And it was Harold who refused to include the ancient trees in a planned timber sale. After his passing, this trail was carved in his honor and the plaque placed in his name, on the biggest of the trees.

Harold’s tree, at last measurement, was 14 feet in diameter.

The giant interpretative log in front of the Darrington Ranger Station is 9 feet in diameter. When the first white settlers came to this area it was 656 years old. we know this by counting the rings. It died when it was 737 years old in 1971 and this slab was moved from North Mountain to its current location.

If you love hiking to see the forest giants be sure to also hike the Lookout Tree Trail.

Views From the Harold Engles Memorial Trail