First, thank you to the Backcountry Horsemen of Washington for packing out our tools and some of our personal gear!

I was part of a BCRT that worked on Jackson Creek trail starting from the intersection with the Shedroof Divide trail. We accessed from the Thunder Creek TH. Thunder Creek trail is in good condition up until the divide. We made camp in the flat area about a quarter mile to the west of the divide. There are no prepared tent pads, but there is a good spot for a camp kitchen/dining room with several upturned logs for seating. If you keep going into the woods on the boot path past that area, you will come to a deep, clean, spring-fed large puddle (or tiny tarn, depending on how you look at it) that was our water source.

We focused on logging out. There was an Idaho trail crew working from their side of the border, and we met up after a few days, which was cool. There were a few logs near the border that we couldn't get to.

Future work parties will need to focus on treadwork. The trail is badly overgrown in many places and vegetation has pushed it well downhill of where it's supposed to be, so you end up creeping along the edge of the slope. Starting about 2 miles in there are several stretches of very deep mud. This being a horse as well as a hiker trail, all of us felt that it seemed pretty hazardous for a horse and rider (although I don't think of any us were horse people, so take that for what it's worth).

There were a lot of berry bushes on trail but what berries remained were pretty small. Dry summer I guess.

All in all this is a beautiful area that I wish I lived closer to. Lots of old-growth forest that I've come to associate exclusively with the western part of the state. I was happy to be corrected!

Our group of 6 participated in a 4-day BCRT on the Jackson Creek Trail which is located on the eastern slope of Shedroof Divide. Jackson Creek drops down to Idaho and our goal was to log out, brush and deal with tread/drainage issues as far as we could to connect to work already done on the lower section of this long-neglected trail. This is a multi-year project on this part of The PNT.

Our access was the adjacent Thunder Creek Trail on the western side of Shedroof Divide which is in excellent shape. 

We were able to improve approximately 1.5 miles of trail from the Shedroof Divide junction. There is still lots to do in the future to restore this trail.

A couple of us took an after-work stroll about 2 miles north on Shedroof Divide to the summit of Thunder Mountain via an unmarked and unmaintained spur trail for big views from this former lookout site. 

Huckleberries were plentiful and the only other people we saw during the entire trip were 2 equestrians on the hike out. 

If there is a better example of Lost Trails Found, I can't imagine it!  Our group of six WTA volunteers and two back country horsemen volunteers led by Jane Baker worked for three days and were able transform half mile of this trail.  It looks magnificent - but my goodness is it hard work.  Logs, brush, slide alder, more brush, more slide alder, and slides! 

This trail heads east from the Selkirk Divide trail and will someday make a great option for loop trips including Thunder Creek and Thunder Mountain.  It was part of the PNWT but the trail was recently re-routed - maybe it will return.

We camped at the junction of the three trails and found water about 1/4 mile below our camp.  A great time was had by all!

I've been torn about a return trip to revisit this old favorite, as my first hike here in 2016 was magical, but the area experienced a major wildfire during the summer of 2017.  I feared the forest would be forever changed, but I'm very happy to report that this loop backpack hasn't lost any of its magic.

A friend and I met early on Saturday to carpool to the proper TH, which I now knew how to find!  My 2016 trip report relates how I got very lost on my first visit; suffice to say, don't rely on the driving directions in the first edition of Trails of Wild Selkirks.  (I hear a second edition of the book is out now, but I haven't checked to see if the driving directions received an update in that version.)  Something new for this trip is that both the access road to Hughes Meadows/Cabin and the access road to the TH for this hike are gated closed, which I think must be a seasonal closure as we transition into fall.  There was no signage regarding why the gates were locked, but we were able to park in a wide spot near the gate, and it only added about a mile to the round-trip distance on the hike.  It means parking is extremely limited, but we saw no other hikers on this beautiful fall weekend, so I think the area is only lightly visited.

We hiked out Hughes Fork Trail #312 on Saturday, where the first portion of the hike is through an old clear-cut that still looks far worse than any of the fire-damaged portions we found farther up trail.  Once in the old growth, the fire cleared out the understory, but the big trees seem to have had a high survival rate.  Some still look a little stressed, perhaps from the hot/dry portion of this summer, but most look as though they'll pull through.  There were standing dead trees that are now standing burned shells, and some of these look as though they may be trailside hazards in years to come (in fact, some were flagged with orange "killer tree" tape!).  However, it was still the same fantastic trail winding through beautiful forest that I remembered, and we had to stop several times to admire particular trees or look at neat rocks and mushrooms.  

We made Saturday our easy day, choosing to camp at the final Hughes Fork creek crossing at approximately the 7 mile mark.  It's the last good place for a campsite with access to water, and it's beautiful.  Another group, likely a trail crew based on "begin tread/end tread" flagging we found along the trail, had obviously camped here recently, but it's still a pristine site without so much as a fire ring, and where the only trash is rusted out tin cans from decades earlier.  The skies threatened rain, and indeed that was the forecast, so we ate an early dinner.  Then we spent the remaining daylight exploring the area along the creek, as the impending storm never materialized.  It was a patchy burn all around the crossing, with many beautiful trees to enjoy and still plenty of wild ginger and ferns.

The next morning I awoke to the sound of thunder and a light rain, but both were finished by the time I ventured out of my tent.  I wasn't sure how much of a rain-free window we'd get, but as it turned out, the rain didn't return until mid-afternoon.  We even got a few sun breaks throughout the day, which lit up the fall colors as we ascended the Hughes Fork and then hiked along the Shedroof Divide. 

I should also mention that both Hughes Fork and the Shedroof are in excellent condition right now.  I know that the Idaho Panhandle BCH completed log-out on Hughes Fork to within a half-mile of the Washington border, and the NE Washington BCH did the same out of Gypsy Meadows and the Shedroof Cut-off to the Washington side of Hughes Fork.  I can only recall one tree down on the entire Hughes Fork trail, and there was a way to easily walk around it.  Someone had also been doing treadwork recently, and we saw some flagging marked ICC, which I believe is the Idaho Conservation Corps.  So thanks to those groups, and also the American Hiking Society & PNTA (plus our own WTA), who worked extensively on the portion of the Shedroof we hiked. 

Then we reached the dreaded, due to neglect, Jackson Creek Trail.  From the Shedroof Divide intersection through the first two miles, the trail is in terrible condition.  It's beautiful and it has so much potential, and I really hope one of the crews can get the green light to work on it soon.  There are several seeps along the upper portion of the trail, which has led to lush growth of the understory, tread creep, and failed turnpike and puncheon.  It was also never logged out this year, and probably not last year either (the 2017 fire didn't affect this trail, although it was closed due to proximity to the Hughes Fork fire).  It's in rough shape, but the beauty of the surrounding forest makes it worth the effort.

Doing this backpack trip as a two-day push makes for a long second day, which my GPS had at 19 miles for Sunday.  An alternate plan would be to hike it in three days, as there is a small campsite at the Shedroof Divide/Jackson Creek intersection.    

As is usually the case for me, we had our best wildlife sighting as we drove home after the hike: a cow and calf moose in a wetland along the road, standing belly-deep in water and feasting on aquatic vegetation (whole head submerged underwater to grab it!).  On trail, the largest live critters we saw were several grouse, and there was an unfortunate deceased coyote in the middle of the Shedroof Divide trail.  We saw so much bear scat, and fresh tracks of bear, wolf, cougar, elk, and deer in the mud at water crossings, but nothing stuck around long enough to give us a glimpse.

I love loop backpack trips, and I've long been eyeing this loop, which accesses the Salmo Priest Wilderness' Shedroof Divide from the Idaho side. My plan was to hike the longer, more gradual trail up: Hughes Creek #312, a trail I've never hiked before. Following that I'd hike the Shedroof Divide south, where I already knew there were lots of downfall trees (and where part of my plan was to get GPS data for the water crossings, since there will be a WTA crew working on clearing the downfall next weekend). Then I'd head down Jackson Creek #311. I hiked a portion of this trail a few years ago, but just the first 2-3 miles from the Shedroof Divide down. I was using the guidebook Trails of the Wild Selkirks to help plan my route, as the Idaho Panhandle National Forest website has no information for the 311 & 312. As it turns out, the guidebook's driving directions to the trailhead are outdated. The access point described in the book does still exist, but it is completely overgrown. Someone has placed a few marking ribbons along the route, and I was able to follow them to the main trail--but it was a very difficult and confusing first mile, and I nearly gave up before stumbling upon the trail by accident. The first mile of the trail (by the old route), or approximately two miles (as I found out when I discovered the new trail on my way back) of Hughes Creek and Jackson Creek are shared trail. They come to a clearly marked intersection, which was my first reassurance that I was on the right route. Since I came by the old, very difficult route, that first mile took me over an hour, several difficult stream crossings, one fall in a hole, and lots of mosquito bites and run-ins with stinging nettles. The hope inspired by the well-marked intersection soon gave way to frustration over downfall and trail completely obscured by vegetation. I persevered, but this trail is very, very difficult. It's also completely worth it. I almost hesitate to write a trip report, as this is the most pristine hiking trail I have ever hiked. I didn't see a single fire ring on the Idaho side of the loop until the very end, where someone built a non-LNT campsite close to the new trailhead (and way too close to a stream). On Hughes Fork, there were no established campsites, no fire rings, and virtually no trash (I found one mylar balloon that blew in on the wind and a few rusty tin cans that were 50+ years old). I made a small, clean camp near the last crossing of Hughes Fork in order to enjoy the fantastic old-growth cedar forest. According to the guidebook, this forest experienced a wildfire sometime around 1900. There are numerous standing dead cedar, as well as huge living trees, all showing evidence of the old burn. The forest floor is open, mainly covered in wild ginger, bracken, and beautiful maidenhair fern. The trail climbs very gradually from the start to this final crossing of Hughes Fork approximately 7 miles in. After that, it climbs steadily for a little over 3 miles to the Shedroof Divide. I hiked the Shedroof in the opposite direction a few weeks ago, so I already knew about the substantial downfall here. This time I counted trees, since there's a work party here next weekend: 174 trees of various sizes. Yikes. And there were at least as many down on both Hughes Fork and Jackson Creek. The good news is that the Shedroof will be cleared soon. The Jackson Creek trail is possibly in worse shape than the Hughes Fork. At the upper portion, there are several places where the tread is incredibly narrow and overgrown. Several drainage features have failed. And there's more downfall. It's a beautiful trail that has been unmaintained for several years. Once back at the shared portion of 311 & 312, I discovered the new portion of trail. It added another trail mile to my hike, plus a road mile to get back to my car, but it's a huge improvement to wading through thigh-deep water then crashing through the Devil's club, nettles, and head-high grass that kicked off my hike on the old trail. To get to the unmarked trailhead, follow all of the road signs to Hughes Meadows. Note the turnoff to USFS road 662; the TH road is 2.5 miles from this intersection. It's a left on USFS road 1399. There is no identifying information at the TH, just a sign indicating the trail is open to hiking and horses and closed to all other uses. The first mile is through an old clearcut with only one reassurance marker, but the route was fairly easy to spot as I hiked out. The flowers along this portion were pretty enough so long I didn't think too much about how they were 99% hawkweed and oxbow daisy (noxious weeds). The trail enters the cedar forest at about 1.5 miles, and then reaches the intersection with 311 & 312 at about the 2 mile mark. I estimate the round-trip distance of this loop at about 25 miles.