Excavation in Quilcene & Brinnon (Hood Canal)

Eaglemount Excavation, LLC works the Hood Canal side of Jefferson County from a shop in Chimacum, about 25 minutes from Quilcene and 45 from Brinnon [VERIFY: travel time]. This is the steepest ground in our service area. Lots climb from US 101 on old forest-road driveways, creeks run hard all winter, and the Dosewallips and Duckabush rivers have shut the highway more than once. Dusty Larson runs the machine himself, and a lot of winter calls from here start with a slide or a culvert.

What we do in Quilcene and Brinnon

Driveways and culverts lead the list. We do driveway grading and site prep on the long, steep forest-road lots above 101, including regrading, ditching and fresh gravel, and we install or replace the culverts under those driveways where a creek crosses. French drains and yard drainage keep water moving off a bench before it soaks the slope below. When a bank lets go or a culvert washes out, emergency excavation and slide cleanup get the driveway open again, and we can walk a lot before you buy it and tell you what the slope and the creek will do in January. Land clearing and utility trenches round it out. Recent work is on the projects page.

Quilcene and Brinnon ground, permits and access

Between US 101 and the water, lots sit on glacial till and clay on steep slopes, cut by creeks that swell from October through March. The Dosewallips and Duckabush valleys near Brinnon are river floodplain, cobbles and sand that shift in a big storm, and both rivers have jumped their banks and closed 101 in past floods. Quilcene has flatter ground near the bay and Lake Leland, but the lots up Lords Lake Loop and along Dabob Bay climb fast.

Driveways are the recurring problem. Many started as forest or logging roads, with thin gravel over till, no ditch and a culvert that was too small the day it went in. One storm blocks the culvert with debris, the water crosses the road, and the driveway below it is gone. Slides come off the cut banks above the road for the same reason.

Permits go through Jefferson County Department of Community Development, septic through Jefferson County Environmental Health, and almost everything here touches the Critical Areas Ordinance, JCC 18.22, because of the streams, steep slopes and Hood Canal shoreline. Culvert work in a fish-bearing stream may need state approval too [VERIFY: how Eaglemount handles stream permits]. Access is US 101 itself, two lanes and slow behind a trailer, then whatever the driveway can carry; on the steepest lots we look at the driveway before we commit a machine.

Recent jobs in Quilcene and Brinnon

• [VERIFY: a real Quilcene or Brinnon job — what, where, roughly when]
• [VERIFY: a second Hood Canal job — what, where, roughly when]

Getting there from Chimacum

Center Road runs south from Chimacum to US 101 just north of Quilcene, about 25 minutes [VERIFY: travel time]. Brinnon is another 20 minutes down 101 over Mount Walker, past Dabob Bay and the Dosewallips [VERIFY: travel time]. In a bad storm 101 can close at the Dosewallips, so for emergency calls south of Walker Pass we check the highway before we roll.