After several days of being stuck inside due to bad smoke AQI, I saw this area in a visible gap in the smoke clouds on the satellite pictures and took a chance. It was my first time on this trail, and even with reduced visibility distance, it is obviously quite a beautiful loop!
Light on and off drizzle helped minimize residual smoke in the air, but also made some areas of the trail a bit slippery. Slick rocks combined with my own lack of skill with technical downhill trails led to a few close calls on the descents, but luckily no falls.
I took a short stop near the top to shout a mama bear and cub away, and enjoy half of a Theo chocolate bar. Otherwise I mostly kept moving with the exception of short pauses while passing hikers and checking directions a couple of times. I should have started the run earlier in the day, as the thick tree cover made the lower Sol Duc river trail pretty dark as dusk approached.
It looks like this loop is a fairly recent addition to the FKT site, so as with the previous posters, I'm sure that there have been much faster times on the loop, but I'm happy to put this up as an interim mark until someone faster makes the trip out there. There's easily at least a soft minute per mile to come off just for someone who is half way decent at downhill trails.