trout creek guard station - part 2

Saturday morning brought us mostly sunny skies and ham-egg-cheese sandwiches for breakfast (as well as truly nasty Folgers instant coffee - bleh).  The weather looked like it was going to hold up so we decided to try to hike a loop that we'd pieced together on our map: trail 029 from behind the cabin to trail 025/Highline Trail to ATV trail 009 to Forest Service road 020, which goes right by the cabin.  It was all laid out there, clear as could be on the map, but we decided to bring the compass just in case.

Trail 029 right before we saw the elk

It was a dang good thing we did too.  The first half of this nearly 12-mile hike was really difficult, not because of the terrain but because the trails were so lightly traveled and so very poorly marked.  Instead of paint blazes (which they don't use out here but we're used to from back East), they'd chopped hatchet-slashes into the trees - which tend to get overgrown as the tree ages.  There were occasional cairns too, but those were pretty sporadic, plus there were a lot of blown-down trees so we often had to scramble over them, off the trail, and then find the trail again.  Eventually we learned to search out the old blow-downs that had been chainsawed years ago to clear the trail.  The forest on the 029 section was particularly beautiful and we even saw a herd of elk as they ran away from us.  (Elk are very shy.)

Joyfully leaving 025 behind in Manila Park

The Highline Trail/025 was even tougher to follow than 029, especially when we got to the high point of the trail, a moonscape of strange sandy/rocky dunes punctuated with the occasional wizened tree.  And no trail to speak of.  As thunder rumbled ominously overhead, we searched in vain for 15-20 minutes, trying to find some semblance of a path.  We knew we could go back the way we came, but we really didn't want to try to find the trail again backwards, knowing how tough it had been the first time.  Finally, after getting out the map and compass to orient ourselves, we went back to the last tree we knew had a blaze and then searched until we found one fallen tree that had been sliced by a chainsaw.  And so it went, chainsaw cut to faint blaze to chainsaw cut, until we found the switchbacks and got off that ridge.  I'm not going to lie to you: it was a little stressful, not knowing where the trail was.

Manila Park (no cows)

We picked up ATV trail 009 in a lovely meadow, Manila Park, and from then on out it was easy travelling, the trail well-worn and evident.  We passed through some pretty woods and a couple other parks populated with surprised range cattle.  009 came out on the forest road that, after an hour's trudging, delivered us right at our cabin.  A little while later, we listened to our range cows mooing as we cracked open some PBRs, cooked bratwursts and baked beans (right in the can) on the campfire, enjoying the sitting down as the thunder rumbled - again - and those glorious stars came out.

Big Brush Creek, along trail 009