Great hike up Jolly Mountain, mostly sunny weather and great views over the rest of the Teanaways, Mount Stuart, and the Enchantments. 20 mph wind on parts of the ridge and the summit but we were able to find wind free spots. Only saw one group of 3 coming up doing trail maintenance just as we were heading down from summit. A bit of snow and frozen ground near the top but never needed spikes. Of course, all this is out the window now with the weather change. Glad to get this hike in beforehand! Trail is easy to follow with various branches to other trails here and there. GPS track is useful. Trail is in great condition and steep in places. It's a multi-use trail that allows motorcycles, so there are tracks all the way to the summit. There is one major river crossing with a bridge about 4 miles in. No special gear needed on this day, though we both had waterproof boots. Gaia stats: 13.5 miles, 4,070' gain, 6,440' elevation, 6:27 total time, 0:53 stopped time.

Road and TH Conditions:  Paved road all the way until the trailhead. We parked at Salmon La Sac Sno-Park and were the only car there in a huge parking lot. A group of campers and motorcyclists were setting up camp when we returned to the car at end of the hike. No facilities here.  

Due to late afternoon time constraints, we didn’t hike Jolly itself, but hiked the Jolly Mt Road. This road is about 15 miles  north of Roslyn off the Salmon la Sac Road on the right. It is where the large winter Snopark is. We drive part ways up and park and then hike from there. We have been hiking, skiing, and snowshoeing this road for 45 years. It has tremendous views of mountains to the west on the north. Today, the fall colors were exuberant. We also use this road because it has fewer hunters and pick up trucks driving up and down than many of the local roads. We only had one motorcycle pass is in the hour+ we were hiking on the road. This is a fine adventure road, whether you a little way or all the way to the top and hike up Jolly. 

Took the short route up forest road 4315 which was in good condition. Gate was open, but I heard that at some point, they close it. We were the only cars when we started but by the time we returned to our cars, there were 4 other cars parked. I was a little surprised since I did not expect many people would venture out this far. Met some nice people on our way back from the summit. Weather was colder than usual and there was dense cloud cover all around above 5500 feet like a blanket sitting on top. Missed out on the views, although Mt Stuart did peek through for a few minutes. Light snow flurries at the top. Expect there will be more snow at the top next week.

Warning! The Teanaway 100 mile race is this weekend. Starting and finishing at Salmon La Sac, it runs from 5:00 AM Saturday to 9:00 PM Sunday. Here is the route https://caltopo.com/m/DTGF   and race info https://teanawaycountry100.com/race-weekend .

Summary

I did a 1-night backpack from the Hex Mountain trailhead 15 miles along Sasse Ridge to Point 5891/Peak 5892, then retraced my steps on Sunday. I camped at the saddle just below that peak (1 mile south of The Louvre). This is a lovely ridge walk with plenty of flowers and greenery in the spring, and great views almost the entire way. But on a warm day, it could quickly turn unpleasant unless there's a strong breeze; it's very exposed with no reliable water. 20% of the trail was covered in snow or obscured by debris from the 2017 Jolly Mountain Fire. But when the trail vanished, it was easy to simply follow the ridge and pick it up again. The only difficult section was on the Jolly Creek Trail (just north of the junction with the Jolly Mountain Trail), where 40 degree snow covers the trail for a short stretch above a cliff. More details on each section of the trail below. Stats are from my GPS+barometer watch, and times are moving times (not including breaks).

Trailhead to Hex Mountain (NF-116, FS #1343): 3.35 miles, +2800', -80', 1 hour 20 mins

A popular hike with great views and a few wildflowers. Very exposed, hot, and dusty. No water. There's potential for a breeze once you get off the road and onto the trail. Easy to miss the trailhead and easy to make wrong turns on the road portion (bring a map). The only people I saw this weekend were on this trail. I didn't actually do the final push to the summit (I had better views in store where I was headed).

Hex Mountain to Howson Peak (Sasse Mountain Trail, FS #1340): 2.5 miles, +1350', -800', 1 hour 5 mins

Burned forest, no water. This section of my route was the most fire-affected. The trail comes in an out of existence. It's easy to find when it traverses a slope because the cut is still visible, but on flatter stretches it tends to disappear under fallen trees, branches, and fresh vegetation.

This is the only section of my route where the actual trail clearly deviated from the GPS route I had pulled from CalTopo/OpenStreetMap. Those maps still use the old hand-drawn Forest Service route. Based on my GPS track, I lost the trail (took different paths northbound and southbound) at least 3 times. Where my two tracks align, I think I had found the actual trail. But the terrain was easy to navigate and the undergrowth was soft, so losing the trail probably didn't slow me down at all. The only somewhat tricky navigation was just west of Howson Peak, where the trail cuts below Point 5159, and you can decide whether you want to save some elevation and distance by traversing lower, or save some side-hill walking by traversing higher. The Strava Global Heatmap indicates some kind of a consensus is forming on where the trail actually is. The next time I do this, I'll pull a track from there.

Howson Peak to Jolly Mountain Trail (Sasse Mountain Trail, FS #1340): 4.7 miles, +1850', -1700', 2 hours

This section of the trail was easy enough to follow, although there was significant snow coverage. The snow isn't problematic (I didn't have traction), but be careful of cornices. The views from this stretch were OK, but the summit of Sasse Mountain is forested (although with a nice fire-pit-turned-planter-box), so the views from the ridge to the south (toward Howson Peak) or north (on Point 5610) were better.

You can follow roads for about a mile of this stretch where NF-4315 reaches the ridge. There's a large pile of snow at the end of the road at 5500' which is currently feeding a small pool in the road. This was the first significant water of the day (ignoring small muddy trickles from other piles of snow). I don't love drinking off of motorized vehicle tracks (the trail above this is also open to dirt bikes), but I don't like passing water when I have empty bottles. So I filled up, and I'm glad I did, because my plan of dropping down the Jolly Mountain Trail to Salmon La Sac Creek was foiled by snow. So I kept going along the ridge along the Jolly Mtn Tr. I noticed tracks in the snow at this point. I assume they were from folks who had come up FR 4315 to summit Jolly Mtn, because I didn't see any tracks on the snow-covered Jolly Mtn Tr, nor did it seem it would be possible to navigate that slope without crampons and an ice axe. I expect it will be at least three weeks until that trail is melted out.

There are a few options for dropping off the ridge to get water along this stretch (Little Salmon La Sac Trail, or NF-4315 either way).

Jolly Mountain Trail to the saddle northwest of Pt 5891 (Jolly Mountain Trail, FS #1307, and Jolly Creek Trail, #1355): 2.75 miles, +1360', -1390', 1 hour 45 minutes

My route dramatically changes character here. The north face of Jolly Mtn is mostly covered in snow, as is much of the trail above 5800'. The trail wraps around a small hill north of Jolly Mtn (elevation ~6100'), with the Jolly Creek/Mountain junction on the saddle south of the hill. Snow patches on the south face of this hill melted and fed a stream running along the trail grade. I normally repair waterbars when I see this much water running on a trail, but this was the closest thing to a stream I had seen all day and I figured others may be in a similar situation of wanting water. So I ditched my remaining road-pond water and filled up from this stream.

The forest north of Jolly Mountain did not burn in 2017, and the ground changes from ashy-dusty-brownish to the reddish-whitish-gray gravel I'm used to on Teanaway ridges. Leaving the Jolly Mountain Trail, the Jolly Creek Trail was in surprisingly good shape (compared to the Sasse Ridge Trail), but 100 yards in is a snow patch on a 40 degree slope above a cliff. This was the crux of my adventure. On Saturday, I crossed the snow at a thin patch above the trail then traversed the rest of the slope to the ridge. On Sunday, I opted to stick to the ridge, which quickly turned rather scrambly. I don't know what was better; both were a little sketchy and it was a trade-off between trusting gravel not to be marbles and trusting rock not to be choss. But in a week or two when the snow melts, the trail will be just lovely!

Continuing on, I had hoped to be able to drop down to Jolly Creek and camp in the basin, but the top of the trail was snowy. It would have been possible to veer around the snow to the north before catching the trail lower down, but the ridgeline around the basin toward Pt 5891 looked to have an inviting trail and be mostly snow-free. So I followed the intermittent boot path over Skookum Peak then down to the saddle toward Pt 5891 (the ridge to The Louvre getting rather cliffy). I didn't feel a need to add more sketchy scrambling to my weekend by heading up The Louvre.

Near the saddle northwest of Pt 5891 (Skookum Basin Trail, FS #1393.2): 1.1 miles, +660', -660', 1 hour

From the saddle, I went most of the way up Pt 5891 before it got scrambly and the sun began to set. I went back to the saddle where the Skookum Basin Trail should have been, but as far as I can tell (and as far as the Strava heatmap is concerned), it no longer exists. To the west, a myriad of game trails hide any semblance of a human-made grade. To the east, plenty of snow and an avalanche further down the basin would likely make trying following the trail pointless. (The avalanche looks to be from this season based on the flattened-but-still-green trees; it came off the south face of the southeast ridge of The Louvre, running from maybe 5600' to 4400', appearing to cross the creek.)

So I dropped 500' down to the west into Jolly Creek Basin along game trails until I could access water, filled up bottles for the night, and went back to the saddle to camp. There are nice spots for at least 2 tents up there, and it would make for a lovely backpacking destination, the easiest access being the 4-mile ridge walk from NF-4315 (once the lower gate opens). I may be back for larch season! If you want to avoid scrambling down a valley, it'd be a good idea to just bring all your water with you.

Notes

I got one mosquito bite and was bothered by a few flies, but the ridge is generally free from critters. The sun was the biggest pest.

I cleared many dozens of branches and a few trees from the trail, but the burn area still needs a lot of work (including some grading) before I'd call it a "good" trail. But it's still a great route!

See the CalTopo map link below for my GPS track (in the Runs folder -> "Hex to Skookum 19-20JUN21"). I retraced my steps on Sunday, slightly improving my route in spots (doing a better job finding the actual trail). So if you want to steal my GPS track, I'd suggest taking the southbound half.

Overall: 28.3 miles round-trip, 11400' gain, 23.5 hours car-to-car (including stops), 7 liters of water, 1 sunset, 1 sunrise.

I added several photo spheres to Google Maps along the ridge. Look on Google Maps, turn on the Street View layer, and find the blue circles. I added a link below to a photo sphere taken near my campsite just before sunset.