A bit of a wonky memorial day weekend ramble in the Tucannon-Wenaha where my goals were to see the upper Wenaha River and hike the central portion of the Crooked Creek trail. The roads to the high trail-heads are still snow covered which made for a bit of road walking from Godman Camp.

Road conditions:

Skyline road: Snow free from the North to within a couple hundred yards of Godman camp. Patchy snow from Godman to NF-300 intersection. Friday I high-centered myself trying to take the road around Bluewood ski area but with adventurous memorial day weekend traffic it may now be passable.

NF-4608 (to Teepee TH): ~1-3 feet deep continuous snow from the Skyline road to Teepee TH.

NF-300 (to Twin Buttes/Slick ear TH): ~1-3 feet deep mostly continuous snow for about a mile from the Skyline road. Upper portion of road near TH is melted out.

Trail conditions (There are two Grizzly Bear Ridge trails in the Tucannon-Wenaha called by different names ... confusing ... I use the NF trail #'s below):

Mt. Misery trail: Mostly covered in 0-3' deep snow from Teepee TH to Oregon Butte.

Grizzly Bear Ridge (#3121): A primitive ridge line route from Oregon Butte to Crooked Creek. There is no sign for this trail Jct at either end and I saw only a few patches of tread.

Crooked Creek trail: I met Crooked Creek Trail at 3600' after heading downhill from a saddle on Grizzly Bear Ridge. From this point the trail is somewhat overgrown and brushy to where it crosses Crooked Creek at about 3200'. From here the trail is sparse and badly overgrown for about a mile. It gets better as it climbs the hillside but has plenty of downed trees to hop over. The trail crosses the creek twice then Melton Creek. All knee deep fords. Trail is well maintained from Melton Creek to the Wenaha River.

Wenaha River trail: From Crooked Creek to Butte Creek the trail is over grown but easy to follow through burned terrain. Crooked Creek can be crossed on logs. From Butte Creek to the Jct with Grizzly Bear Ridge trail (#3103) the trail is faint, brushy, and disappears at times. You leave the burn and enter lovely forest about a mile west of Butte Creek (which was a mid-thigh ford). From Grizzly Bear Ridge trail (#3103) Jct to Slick Ear Jct the tread is good and easy to follow with only a few downed trees. Rock Creek at the Grizzly Bear Ridge Jct was a knee deep ford. I met a lot of rattlesnakes along the Wenaha and accidentally stepped on one in an overgrown part of the trail. Both parties were surprised and alarmed.

Slick ear trail: Upper portion is in good condition. Through the forest there are frequent small blowdown. Near the Jct with the Wenaha River Trail there is a large difficult section of blow-down that you have to work around for about 100 yards. The trail fords Slick Ear Creek six times, all were wet feet today.

Grizzly Bear Ridge trail (#3103): Up high the trail follows an old road bed that is well maintained. The road ends in meadows at which point you follow trail that becomes faint but followable as you move in and out of burned forest. The trail then drops to the Wenaha River on well graded switchbacks that were overgrown along Rock Creek.

Who would have thought a 5 mile, downhill trail would be a hard way to start a trip? The trailhead was hard to find because of a recent forest fire and a downed tree obstructing the round. Also there was a road not on the map that confused us. The left fork leads to the trailhead, and we parked near the downed tree and walked to the end of the road where the trail began. The trail started on a ridge and was easy to follow, but once we descended into a creek drainage it was unmaintained, with chest high brush obscuring what was left of the trail, and countless downed trees. There were also many creek crossings which involved wading. To top it off, it poured down rain the whole time, and despite rain gear we were drenched when we arrived at the Wenaha River end of the trail We hiked along the river the next day to the Grizzly Bear Ridge trail, intending to camp at Meadow Springs. Initially it was easy to follow, though unmaintained. After we reached the ridge top there was recent fire damage which completely destroyed the trail. Route finding was relatively easy with map and compass, but there were so many downed trees that it was a slog. After the fire damaged area, the trail was easy to follow. We never found Meadow Springs, and ended up hiking almost back to the road. Coyote Spring was easy to find and we camped on the ridge top near it, with spectacular views. I'm not sure I would recommend this route, though it did provide solitude, abundant wild flowers, and some great views.

Grizzly Bear Ridge Trail #3103 - Wenaha River Trail #3106 - Slick Ear Trail #3104 Solstice Hike to Oregon and Back! 21 miles - 11 hiking hours (beginner hikers) - only water access at Wenaha and the lower third of Slick Ear Drove in from Dayton, WA on forest service roads (able to make it in my small compact sedan). Stayed straight on the main road past the ski area, and although there were many roads branching off, the primary road takes you to both the Twin Buttes (Grizzly) and Slick Ear trailheads, however I do recommend a WA gazetteer/atlas, as we used this for both navigating the forest service roads as well as as a hiking map. We arrived an hour before sunset at the Twin Buttes trailhead. 1/4 mile in we turned south onto the Grizzly Bear ridge trail, camped after 2 miles in the beautiful open alpine meadows. Lovely views of the Wallowa mountains to the south. Crossed the Oregon border the next morning and hiked along the lovely ridge and then a brief steep drop downhill to the Wenaha, hiking 2 hours (4mi) along the river trail brought us to the fork for Slick Ear labeled "Twin Buttes," hiked 1 hour uphill on the Slick Ear trail. Camped at last water access point 2 miles north of the Wenaha, at the base of a massive ponderosa pine 10 meters West of the trail, fire ring and flat tent site, though not super visible from the trail. The grizzly portion of the trail was better maintained as it is traversed by horseback regularly. The Wenaha and lower portions of the Slick Ear were very overgrown but the trail was not difficult to follow. No good beaches or access points to the Wenaha, however I imagine fly fishing would be excellent. Slick Ear offered even better views to the south of the Sawtooth and Wallowa mountians. Nice gradual climb, which is why we chose to do the loop this direction. There is a branch trail reconnecting slick ear to the Twin Buttes trail head, however we must have missed it as we popped out 1.5 miles down the road at the Slick Ear trailhead where a number of private cabins are. We just walked the road back to our car. The trade off for the poor trail maintenance was that we saw no one else on the trail over the weekend, saw a black bear, mountain goats and great birding. Felt kinda funny to "bag a river" rather than "bag a peak" but really enjoyed getting to see the two different views from the ridge trails at the top of both ends of this hike.