Gifford Pinchot National Forest

I love this national forest but particularly this area! It’s in its natural state, the only thing the forest services really does is clean up the sides of the road, patch holes in the asphalt (only the asphalt) & clear trees that have fallen in the roads & dangerous trees along side the main roads. Camp grounds are pretty well maintained but they try to keep the area as natural as possible!

— Angela Wynn

Stunning, just a beautiful place... breathtaking

— Michael G Clark

Flying on a southbound Alaskan airlines , all the mountains were visible, to include Mt Saint Helens!

— Cathleen Hardin

From Skate Creek Road just past Ashford towards Mount Rainier is the 52, a 23 mile journey, to Packwood. Now bear in mind, Packwood is a town in the middle of the Forrest and what I consider a destination. We made it to Packwood on Saturday of Memorial Day weekend for the flea market (I'll save that review for another time) and planned to go again on Monday, Memorial Day. We never made it. We enjoy taking the roads less traveled and found ourselves in awe of the utter beauty of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest so much so that we took a turn here, a turn there and got ourselves lost. Lost in a very good way! There's many a logging road on the drive to Packwood along highway 52 and those roads have no names, addresses or cabins. We found ourselves up to the snow line in no time and as warm as it was, we didn't need our heavy winter coats thank goodness! We saw waterfalls both big and small, had to stop to rock hound at a few sites. I'm a lover of rocks and the opportunity to find some neat rocks in areas of the beaten track were plentiful. We saw lots of mushrooms but not being too knowledgeable about them, we left them alone. Good thing we did because we found out later that one needs a permit for foraging! If you plan on driving these roads I would suggest you fill your gas tank in Ashford because there's no other station for 83 miles. There's gas in Packwood but after driving for miles on different logging roads, we didn't find any that led to Packwood so it's a good thing to be prepared with fuel and food just in case. Many people love to travel the world but forget to take the short day trips found in their own backyards. This drive is an hour from our home and transforms you to a whole different world where there's no traffic, both vehicular or pedestrian (once you get off the main road), no fast food joints, no television and no cell phone reception. I guarantee you won't miss those things either!

— Cat

Camping here for the weekend was definitely needed. Swift Lake is amazing and the water feels great to swim in. $7.00 over night parking and took a boat across the lake to camp across the lake. We ended up camping practically across from the dock, only downfall to our nice area was a lot of bumble bees. The actual campsite is very well maintained and full of a great staff. If you have a boat, i recommend taking it here to swift lake and finding all the awesome hidden coves to swim in.

— Jacob Cooper