Hiked to Upper Klonaqua Lake for some weekend fishing with the dogs. A great time!

I switched into sandals to wade across French creek at the French/Icicle junction. The water was running just at about mid-shin, not too bad with a trekking pole. I've hopped across the rocks in the past, but they looked a little extra slippery this time. We turned onto the French Creek trail, which was hot and dusty but berries were perfectly ripe along most of the trail. A few brushy overgrown sections, but you could mostly still see your feet. 

Most of the little creeks were dried up or nearly dry, but there is good French Creek access for water at mile ~4.7 (measured from the car). There is a little more frequent water access as you get pretty close to the turn off for Snowall-Cradle. We crossed the Klonaqua Creek by rock hopping on the way up, but on the way out a nice group told us about a downed log that was much easier to cross (a ~50ft bushwack down creek from the trail crossing). 

The ascent up to Upper Klonaqua was definitely steep, but overall in good condition. A few blowdowns, easy enough to hike around/over. A bit tricky to keep track of the trail at the beginning of the climb when it's pretty wide open, GPS was helpful here. Nice little water access point at ~4200 ft, then we turned left at ~5100 ft towards Bob's Lake for a snack break and cool down. The climb can be a little slippery in places from the pine needles. Finished out the last steep overgrown mile to Upper Klonaqua just in time for some lunch and afternoon fishing. The shoreline can be a bit steep and brushy, so we had to use the spinning reels instead of fly fishing. 

My fellow sawyer, Greg M. and I, hiked over Paddy-Go-Easy pass and down to the other side of the pass to the intersection with the Meadow Creek trail #1559 on our way to meet up with a Backcountry Horsemen(BCH) work party. Our plan was to finish a large trail project near the intersection with French Creek trail and Meadow creek trail. The Paddy-Go-Easy trail was thought to be a shorter route to the work project site than the 12 mile trek in from Black Pine Horse camp where the rest of our work group would be starting. We decided to carry our crosscut saws with us rather than have them packed in from Black Pine. This proved to make our hike in more tiring due to the large number of log obstructions on the trail up to the pass and down to French Creek.
We knew that there was a WTA work party working on this trail just a couple week prior to our trip and hoped that the trail would be mostly clear. It wasn't. In spite of a tremendous effort by the WTA work team, we still encountered 73 logs across the trail up to the pass and another 22 logs on the other side down to French creek. It appeared the French creek side of the trail was not as widely used as the Cle Elum side and was difficult to navigate and in need of a serious brushing project. We encountered several large logs over 24" dia. on this section. Greg and I finally got to the project site, found our gear stash that had been packed in and got our camp set up and dinner as we were losing daylight. We started our work project on the Meadow Creek trail the next morning, working with the rest of the BCH crew and finished after 2 days of hard sawyer and tread work. After packing up our gear to be packed out on the mules, Greg and I headed out again for the grueling hike over 22 logs up to the pass and the 73 logs again going down to the trail head.
We will be planning a work party next year (2024) to clear both sides of this trail and would welcome any help we can get. Just drop me a message and we'll make sure you get to join our team!
Since there are already many great pictures of the surrounding area, I'll throw some in showing the trail logs.

Backcountry Horsemen did some major brushing along this trail about 4-6 miles in. This trail is now much safer for both hikers and stock. In the past you could not see the trail under your feet, vine maple would be slapping you in the face. Now, there is even a view that was not there before! Happy trails.

This trip was originally a 4-day 3-night loop planned, but turned into an overnight with how badly day 1 and start of day 2 beat me up. For reference purposes Day 1 from Jack Trout TH to junction of Meadow Creek/French Creek was about 14.86 miles with almost 6k gain. Day 2 was Meadow Creek/French Creek Junction to Paddy-go-Easy TH which was 6.83 miles and about 1,100ft gain. 

TL;DR:
Blackjack Ridge Trail: fine to summit, after that: NOPE! 
Snowall Crade Trail: (btw blackjack & meadow creek) defined trail but lots of blowdowns 
Meadow Creek Trail: (btw snowall & french creek) defined but overgrown and massive blowdown smattering near french creek
French Creek Trail: (btw meadow creek & paddy go easy pass) overgrown, lots of blowdowns near the base, fine once you get higher above tree line and more exposed
Paddy-go-Easy Trail: Paddy-go-up-over-under-around-between blowdown after blowdown. complete loss of trail in the middle. NOPE!

Road Conditions: Icicle Rd to Jack Trout Trail is mostly paved, and then gravel all the way. No potholes or any issues. Very well kept. Pit toilet available at the TH. Cle Elum Valley Road has a big washout at Scatter Creek TH - high clearance vehicles seemed to be able to cross and pass with no problem, but was decently wide and deep, not flowing too fast tho.

Trail Conditions: 
Blackjack Ridge Trail: DOES NOT EXIST after the summit. Even getting to the summit the last bit is not well defined, but easier to navigate to. The trail on the map shows the junction to Snowall Cradle at roughly 5850ft - the actual junction is about 500ft lower at 5380ft. My guess is the entire trail sits 500ft lower, which makes sense as I ended up in some very dangerous situations on cliff faces and steep terrain trying to navigate according to the map. Trail is in great condition up to the summit, but prepare for 2 miles that are over 1k gain each! Worth the effort as the views are incredible at the summit, just turn around and go back though.

Snowall Cradle Trail: from the Blackjack Ridge Junction to Meadow Creek, the trail is in decent shape with a smattering of blowdowns. A few hairy sections that lose trail, and enough to tire you out (especially after miles of wayfinding and no trail).

Meadow Creek Trail: from snowall cradle junction to french creek junction, the trail was well defined, which was a much needed morale boost at the time, but is still very overgrown and a nightmare patch of blowdowns just before french creek junction. Lots of muddy sections here as well. I believe this trail only exists and is visible right now because some horses went thru (thankfully). 

French Creek Trail: from meadow creek junction to Paddy-go-Easy Pass, lots of overgrowth and bushwhacking, really back jungle gym blowdowns to start and a handful as you make your way up. The trail seems really delicate in some sections like one step away from being lost to a landslide so tread carefully. Decently easy to follow, did lose the trail in a meadow nearer to the pass - follow the dried up creek rock beds to the right.

Paddy-go-Easy Pass Trail: from the pass down to the TH, fine at the pass then absolute obliteration of blowdowns. It wasn't too bad to start, just very annoying and slow going, but the middle is just complete loss of trail and more route navigating. I DO NOT RECOMMEND this trail until it gets cleaned up and reestablished. (previous trip report mentioned the same, trust me, they are bad, if you're looking for a sign, this is it).

Animals/Bugs: no animal sightings, but saw tons of bear scat along meadow creek trail. Also, tons of horse poop. Bugs weren't too bad. I did notice the mosquitos were the worst near paddy-go-easy pass, so I imagine if you're camping at sprite lake, they may be pretty unpleasant there. Otherwise they were around but not swarming or unbearable.

Water sources: this route was pretty dry, so definitely fill up when you can. Blackjack ridge had a small trickle about a mile up, and then not til I went down the mountain a ways was there a creek off trail. For being named Meadow Creek, there wasn't a ton of water until closer to French Creek junction. Both sides of Paddy-go-Easy were pretty dry with only a couple of small streams higher up from what I recall. 

Other: there was nice camping spots at the meadow creek/french creek junction near a creek that has a nice little pool area to dip in. Also, highly recommend blackjack mountain, as a day hike or overnight summit and back down, but beyond that - do yourself a favor, and just don't.

Happy Trails (are found on other trails better maintained than these)

:-)

Arrived at the Icicle Creek Trailhead at 1pm.  We found a car with the windows smashed out.  The owners of the vehicle arrived soon after.

Took Icicle Creek trail to French Creek trail to Klonaqua lake trail.  The trail is extremely overgrown and very difficult to navigate without gps.  You constantly wonder if you are even still on the trail, and yet, every time I checked my gps/map, I was right on the trail.  

There is a rock cairn near where the trail splits off to Bob lake and lower Klonaqua lake, which was actually very helpful.  My other tip would be, if it looks like you are walking in a dry rocky stream, you are probably on the trail.  You WILL have to do some bushwacking to make it all the way to the top.

We did not see any other hikers the entire trip, so if you are looking for solitude and you have solid navigation skills, this trip is maybe the adventure for you.