WTA volunteers participated in a Back Country Response Team July 10-12 clearing downed trees and conducting annual maintenance along the trail between Bear Pasture and Sullivan Fire Lookout.  All trees were removed from the Crowell Ridge trail and the crew continued to logout the North Fork trail and cleared logs to within a half a mile of the Slate Creek Trail junction. 

The jokes and laughs were many during this work party. Over half the crew traveled from western Washington to join the team.  Be advised that the USFS road into the Bear Pasture trailhead is very overgrown with alder and has a few muddy holes that require slow driving.  The brush is very thick in the last few miles to the trailhead and will most definitely scratch vehicles. 

Wildlife signs were minimal with a few piles of bear scat on the access road and a few more on the section of trail closest to the Sullivan Fire Lookout. No bears were spotted, although we looked for them often. Humming birds visited camp in the evenings and many winged critters were found above tree line from mosquitoes, to butterflies, to biting flies, horseflies, and some industrious bees.

The cold water spring located .4 miles below the trail junction on the North Fork trail was our only water source and required a dipping cup to fill our gravity filtration devices.  We found three other parties had signed the TH register the week or so before our BCRT. Thru-hikers and sectional hikers of the PNT will have a nice “mostly open” trail between Bear Pasture and Red Bluff this summer due to the section from Red Bluff to the Wilderness Boundary having already been logged out earlier this year. The huckleberry bushes on south facing slopes were laden with berries but east facing slopes still had green berries. Now would be a great time to pick berries on the North Fork trail!

This was part of a four-day WTA BRCT logout in the Salmo Priest Wilderness. We met Thursday morning at Bear Pasture TH. While the road is driveable in almost any car (high clearance and 4WD not necessary) the road is very overgrown in places and there are some down trees requiring a lot of attention. The road is also narrow. Not narrow-like-I-am-going-to-plummet-2000-feet-to-my-death narrow, but if there are cars meeting going in opposite directions, someone is going to have to backup, and maybe quite a ways, until you reach a pullout. But, the reward for this effort is a beautiful ridge where you will probably see more wildlife than other hikers.

After our briefing we gathered our tools and our group started the 3.8 mile hike to our camp in the saddle where the PNT splits Crowell Ridge and Crowell Ridge - Middle Peak. The trail is brushy in places, and rocky all over. It was about 1400 feet of gain and 400 feet of loss between the TH and the camp. The saddle provides (somewhat) flat-ish tent pads, with stunning views to the east and west, making one of the few places where you get sunrise AND sunset views.

From here we hiked down (north) on the PNT 0.5 miles to a spring which is the closest water source this time of year. The spring is small but mighty, providing enough water to filter to keep you from dying of dehydration. We used a cup to gently scoop water from the spring on the uphill side of the trail (I say gently to keep from stirring up too much silt) and pour into our filtration devices. Along with the 0.5 miles is a loss and gain of about 250 feet round trip, which isn’t much but when you’re hauling 10 liters of water, it’s not close.

Over the next few days one crew logged out all the way to the wilderness boundary below Sullivan Mountain. 26 trees were cut and cleared and a dozen water bars restored. This ridge is exposed ( there are few trees) and bone dry, so carry all the water you’ll need. Another crew worked north/west along the PNT clearing more than 40 trees down toward the wilderness boundary. While we did not make it to the boundary, the trail is in much better shape now. This section of the PNT is covered a lot more by trees, and while it is a consistent descent and gain out-and-back, at least there is some shade. About 1.5 miles from our campsite you enter an almost “silver forest”, which is beautiful in its own right.

At the end of our trip we hiked back to Bear Pasture, drove down the road 19 miles to Sullivan Lake, and enjoyed a dip in the lake. The experience was wonderful and I have a completely new appreciation for all the work logout crews put in to make trails safer and more enjoyable. Truly working to makes trails for everyone, forever.

I’m pleased to report that Crowell Ridge is now in great shape! Despite hot temperatures our crew was able to accomplish a ton of work over four days, completing logout of the entirety of Crowell Ridge by day two, then focusing our efforts towards both logout of North Fork Sullivan Creek and some extensive brushing work on day three, and wrapping up with extra brushing and drainage work on day four as we exited. The crew even managed to convince me to get started at 6:30am each morning to take advantage of the cooler morning temperatures! That gave us lots of afternoon time for hiding in the shade and enjoying some reading and visiting time. This is among my favorite campsites for fantastic views! Things ended up a bit hazy due to numerous fires, but that also led to amazing sunrises and sunsets. The bugs were annoying at dawn and dusk but not too bad during the day.

A group of 6 participated in a BCRT on the rugged and scenic Crowell Ridge Trail over four days. We were able to complete logout from The Bear Pasture Trailhead to the southern trailhead at Sullivan Mountain, 7.8 miles each way, as well as finish a short section that an earlier BCRT had been unable to access on the North Fork Sullivan Ck Trail due to snow. We also repaired some sections of tread that were slumping on the trail, brushed and removed many loose rocks. Trails in this section of The Salmo-Priest Wilderness are now cleared. 

We camped at the 6620' junction of The Crowell Ridge and North Fork Sullivan CK Trails where we gazed out at the expanse before us as we enjoyed mealtime and social hour. 

Bugs were sometimes fierce but a breeze gave us respite from time to time. 

Our water source was 0.4 miles down The North Fork Sullivan Ck Trail at a spring on the north side of the trail. 

The final day was spent brushing the 3.5 miles back to the wilderness boundary near Bear Pasture. 

This was a two-night/three-day backpack trip with four adults and one tough trail pup. We accessed Crowell Ridge via Sullivan Creek to Highline Road to Bear Pasture. The road was a little rough but not too difficult, and definitely in better condition than the last time I tried to access Crowell Ridge via Sullivan Mountain (we spoke to two hikers this trip who tried to go in that way in a Prius, and they ended up having to park several miles before the trailhead and bushwacked up to trail). There is some encroaching vegetation (mainly alder), but no major rough road sections. We found a patch of snow blocking the last few hundred feet of road on Friday morning, but even that was almost entirely melted out by the time we exited on Sunday.

Day one consisted of backpacking in as far as the junction with North Fork Sullivan Creek, and then setting up a base camp. The lingering snow patches added a little navigational challenge, but were not too difficult to get around. After setting up camp, we did a side-hike toward Sullivan Mountain, although we turned back about a mile before the western trailhead. After dinner, a couple of up hiked up to the high point above our campsite to take in the outstanding views and enjoy sunset from a higher vantage point. It's a dry campsite, but water is located just 0.4 mile down the North Fork trail. It was a little more challenging to get to it since there were still some 2-3' snow drifts on the trail, but that will be gone soon. I've found the water source is reliable into late summer each year.

My ulterior motive for Friday's hike was to scout conditions for my upcoming BCRT. So trail conditions are still early-season at this point, with some downfall trees, brushy sections, and tread/erosion problems. I'll be back with a crew at the end of the month to work on all of that; please consider joining us!

On Saturday we broke camp and moved back to the "junction" with the climber's trail to Gypsy Peak. We initially thought we might camp at or near Watch Lake, but there was still enough snow on the ridge to make getting there with full packs a bit more challenging than we wanted. This allowed us to do the off-trail route to Gypsy with light daypacks. I ended up melting snow for water at this dry campsite, and the rest of the group did a side-hike down to the stream crossing on the trail to get water (it was 0.8 miles below camp, so quite a round-trip trek for water). 

Gypsy Peak is an off-trail scrambling adventure, made a bit more difficult in the early season by deep lingering snow patches (at one point I ended up hip-deep). The views are absolutely incredible! But I yet again intended to add on South Fork peak, and yet again got to the summit of Gypsy and decided I'd had enough fun for one day, especially considering we still needed to hike back to camp. One of these days I'll make it to South Fork, too! But we were out of time & energy on this visit.

Storms started moving in overnight on Saturday into Sunday, and we broke camp and made an early exit since there was a big thunderstorm in the forecast for mid-day Sunday.