The Bluff Trail Near Port Gamble Will Reward You with a Taste of History as well as a Beautiful Walk in the Woods

Looking for a nice, secluded summer hike not far from the island? A couple of years ago we discovered the Bluff Trail, a relatively flat hike that hugs the western shoreline of Gamble Bay, not far from the old company town of Port Gamble.

A small parking lot – across the street from the entrance to the relatively new Port Gamble Forest Heritage Park, where there are miles of mountain biking and hiking trails – leads you to the more obscure but much quieter Bluff Trail. Both these parks have ties to the former Pope & Talbot sawmill that operated on the bay for 142 years before it was shuttered in 1997. Port Gamble was established to support the mill and house and feed its employees.

Fortunately for we hikers, the Bluff Trail, which sits above a rocky beach that now contains varieties of shellfish, was left nearly unscathed by the lumberjacks of yesteryear. Yes, you occasionally come across the stump of an old cedar tree with springboard holes carved into its trunk, but for the most part, what you will find is a mix of forest that is practically virgin-like in its appearance and stalwartness. There are stands of tall Sitka Spruce, any number of giant Cedars and the ubiquitous Douglas Fir sprinkled throughout.

Also, dotted in and around the path are century’s old Big Leaf Maples, ancient-looking Alders and thousands upon thousands – or so it seems – of Sword Ferns, with Salal and Oregon Grape mixed in for good measure. As you walk, you come upon some amazing canopies and trees so large that you literally have to crane your necks to see the tops. Thanks to Kitsap County, which purchased the former Pope & Talbot property (later known as Pope Resources), including the 1.5 miles of undisturbed shoreline that the Bluff Trail sits on, the former mill site is slowly being converted into a recreational paradise for mountain bikers, hikers, walkers, kayakers and other outdoor enthusiast.

The nearby town of Port Gamble is becoming a destination for weddings, conferences, restaurants and shops of every ilk. There’s even the local Jewel Box Theater, where plays of every stripe – featuring local community actors – are regularly staged there.

While the Bluff Trail is not particularly long, it does have a few sections where you may have to hop over a deadfall or scurry up an uneven stretch of trail. The rewards, though, are worth it. At certain junctures you’ll come to an opening, overlooking the waterway beneath you. At that point, you may be up 80 to 100 feet above the beach on the bank. What you’re looking out to is Gamble Bay, where during the height of the sawmill era, hundreds, if not thousands of logs would have been floating in the water. On the other side, is land owned by the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe, which operates The Point Casino in Kingston, along with other entities.

What’s fascinating about a hike like the Bluff Trail is to realize that you’re standing and walking in an historic place that has been occupied by native people for centuries, and by Europeans and Western Settlers a century and a half ago. The sawmill was established in 1853, well before the Civil War, and decades before what was then known as the Washington Territory became the State of Washington.

Pope & Talbot was the longest continuous running sawmill in the United States until it went bankrupt and closed for good in 1995. The company began dismantling it in 1997. When I was the Business Editor of the former Bremerton Sun (now the Kitsap Sun) back in those days, I did a number of stories on the whole episode. One day stands out. They were auctioning off mill equipment – large saws, presses and the like – that was located on the sand flats where the huge mill operated for nearly a century and a half. It was a scene out of the industrial past, with the hulking pieces of machinery on display that were used to debark and cut lumber, among other tasks.

A few old-timers were in attendance and some of them recalled working at the plant back in the 1940s and 1950s (or maybe earlier) and making somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.25 an hour to perform what had to be tough, challenging and dirty work. None of them, though, seemed to complain, as I recall, and dare I say, missed the labor, the experience and the camaraderie of working at the mill.

As the landowner, Pope Resources began an environmental cleanup of the site around 2002. The job was massive, including the removal of 110,000 cubic yards of wood waste and contaminated sentiments, 1.3 acres of docks and 8,592 pilings. The pilings, along with 6,000 tons of debris were shipped off site for disposal, allowing for 106 acres of Gamble Bay to be cleaned up.

Looking out at the pristine water today from the Bluff Trail, it’s hard to imagine what the bay must have looked like just 30 or 40 years ago, with the mill still intact, logs floating on the surface, cranes moving about, and smokestacks rising from the mills’ many cavernous buildings. Thanks to the foresight of Pope Resources and Kitsap County the land has been reclaimed and transformed into a wonderful recreational area.

Like many hikes in our region, the Bluff Trail has rewards both physical and psychological. It’s worth breathing in the history!

Photos by Kevin Dwyer. 

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