Just returned from a thru-ride of the entire Kettle Crest Trail, Boulder Pass south to White Mtn Trailhead.  The entire trail is clear of trees, some brushing needed but navigation is excellent considering trail work has been cut short with the early fire risk this year.  Despite record drought I found most water sources still flowing nicely.  The spring 4.5 miles south of Boulder Pass was still going, then the next reliable water is 10 miles, the stock trough just south of Tr 47 below Lambert Mtn.  Water trough just north of Old Stage Trail is in great shape.  Next water is piped spring at Jungle Hill Tr intersection, 7.1 miles.   Water trough just below Columbia Mtn Trail is DRY. Next good water is 0.6 miles south of Sherman Pass, great stream. Stock trough at the Snow Peak Cabin is full.  Spring at PNT/KCT split is dry, Ive always found that one to be unreliable.  Water trough on White Mountain is fantastic, nice job trail crews!!! Smoke was minimal for my trip this past week, wind shift could easily change that.  Fire weed still in full bloom and gorgeous but most other wildflowers are spent. Hope this helps!!!

I hiked the Kettle Crest Trail #13 end to end to end, starting at the north trailhead, traversing to the south end (White Mountain) and returning. 

I spent the night before at Deer Creek Forest Camp, located just across the road from the Kettle Crest North TH. It's on a paved road and an easy, quick drive from Curlew. The 2015 Stickpin fire ravaged the area, but the camp has been recently refurbished with gravel, picnic tables, and a satisfactory pit toilet. There were no bugs and a pleasant, smoky glow on the horizon as I turned in. 

I hiked the 160–170 mile section of the Pacific Northwest Trail from the Kettle River to Oroville (parts of PNT Sections 4 and 5 as described on the pnt.org site).

Some notes from the hike:

• The ancient “road” on the western side of Marble Mountain is more of a road ghost: a road-width grade cut into the mountainside, covered with trees, bushes, and blowdowns.
• The mile or so of valley between Marble Mountain and Dry Mountain (some 2–3 miles north of Boulder Creek Road) is perhaps the worst section of trail I’ve ever hiked. Although the region is generally dry, there’s water in the valley that frequently runs along the trail, turning into a marshy bog. There are not only countless blowdowns, but many still retain brushy branches, making it extremely challenging to find a way past them. I had to remove my pack at one point to squeeze through branches.
• The National Forest Deer Creek Summit Campground appears to be open. It seems to have been posted as closed in previous years, but I could find no “Closed” signage anywhere, and privies on either side of the road are open. Two other groups were camping there the night I was there.
• The Kettle Crest Trail is in great shape: easy to follow tread, very few blowdowns.
• On Edds Mountain, I took the furthest/westernmost bushwhack option. This wasn’t terrible, but not particularly fun. While bushwhacking may be part of the PNT’s current allure, I’m one hiker who would much prefer the choice of a maintained trail corridor for the complete length.
• The first half of the Thirteenmile Trail was okay, not great. I found it boring: mostly waterless, with little variety, and with hardly a view or pleasant spot where one could camp. I felt like I was walking past the same 3 trees for hours.
• The second half of the Thirteenmile Trail — after it comes out onto high meadows and heads down toward the canyon — are glorious.
• I found the Thirteenmile Trailhead described in at least one place online as a campground, but it’s little more than a gravel parking area and a privy. It was nice to rinse off in freezing Thirteenmile Creek.
• The 3 miles of early morning road walk along the Sanpoil River canyon were some of the nicest of the trip. You can still enjoy nature even when your feet are on pavement.
• The Swan Lake Campground is beautiful. I’m so glad I spent a relaxing afternoon there before spending all of the following day walking north on endless forest service roads.
• I camped at the Sweat Creek “Day Use Picnic Area”. Rather than camp near the privy, I found a more secluded spot by the creek. There’s a big boulder next to the privy: take the trail to its left. The trail bends left and goes through a wooden gate to reach the creek. There are campable spots there. That’s also where the PNT begins its ascent of Clackamas Mountain.
• On the north side of Clackamas Mountain, the old road briefly leaves the Okanogan National Forest to cross private land before reentering public lands. The PNT recommends following “flagging” to avoid that private property. I found no flagging near the road, so I ended up bushwhacking roughly along the line of barbed wire fence. I eventually did pass a couple of bits of weathered vinyl flagging tape, but this was not a well-marked detour. It was also a little challenging to cross Cougar Creek and get back on the public road.
• On Mount Bonaparte, I highly recommend taking the PNT alternate and making the short trip from the alternate to the fire lookout at the summit. There are great views in all directions.
• I’d looked forward to staying at the nice church in Havillah that hosts PNT hikers, but they’ve posted online that they’re not hosting hikers due to the pandemic. Instead, I camped at the very edge of Okanogan National Forest. A faint Road 3230 leads east from the PNT back into the forest, where it’s possible to find flattish spots for camping. Mill Creek offers water as well.
• This Whistler Canyon Trail down the west side of Mount Hull near Oroville is a hidden gem. My campsite on the bluffs overlooking the Okanogan River had a magical view, especially at night when the lights scattered across the farms below mirrored the lights of the stars above.
• With the exception of 20 minutes of rain on the first day, I had clear weather the entire time.
• I encountered very few bugs. There were some at the summit of Copper Butte, and again on the Whistler Canyon Trail, but nothing terrible.
• I heard from some hikers that the snow melted out along the Kettle Crest only in early July. That late melt may account for the spectacular wildflowers I saw all along the hike.
• I saw a fair amount of wildlife on this hike: countless deer, bighorn sheep, an elk, a fox, and a bobcat. And cows! So many cows. (To the cows in the stampede which my appearance in Okanogan National Forest triggered: my sincerest apologies.) In the evenings, I heard coyotes near Snow Peak, and loons at Swan Lake and Bonaparte Lake.

UPWC Kettle Crest Trail South Bound YoYo

8/3-8/4/2019

So, first time I tried this UltraPedestrian Wilderness Challenge over the fourth of July weekend I psyched myself out and in hindsight I don’t think parking at Sherman Pass to yoyo north followed by a south bound yoyo was the right call. Too easy to find an excuse to bail at the pass… If you’re traveling solo and are planning to yoyo, commit yourself by parking at one end…This go-round I parked at Boulder/Deer Creek CG with the intent to solo yoyo south then back north, apparently due to my inability to convince other this could be fun… The route is a complete traverse of the trail, N-S or S-N for 44 miles one way, if one can noodle out car logistics.

Now, stick close for this one…. On this attempt, when I hit the southern terminus at White Mountain TH, I not only officially finished the route in 13:58, BUT ALSO AND SIMULTANEOUSLY finished my original N – S point to point attempt, started over the fourth of July weekend, in 748 hours and 9 minutes. BOOM!!! Smokin’… Yeah, let that shit marinade…Feelin it??

This time the plan was to drive out Friday after work and hopefully be back in Seattle for Monday morning obligations… After roughly 7 hours I arrived at Boulder/Deer campground and was the only one around. Slept in the back of my car under a clear, cool, starry night… Got a little over 5 hours of sleep before shoving off around 5 am, just before sunup with temps around 48…Perfect start, bold and cold…

I think this trail is deceptive in the fact that there is a lot of great runnable sections and with 44 miles one way, it packs more elevation gain (N-S for 9K) than White River 50. If you yoyo, this route it’s more on pace with Cascade Crest with regard to Vitamin E vs miles … Go too hard early and you’ll pay…

It was fun to see much of the dead fall had been cleared off the trail since the last time I was up here. Some folks put in some hard work and I appreciated it!!

I think between the start and Copper Butte I saw 5 deer… All on the cool, west side of the hills as the warm sun rose…

Coming down Copper Butte I ran into another couple going north from Sherman Pass to Boulder/Deer Creek, Craig and Holly…Craig recognized my shirt and is associated with Skagit Valley Runners. Another funny example of small worldness, or one-degree separations as we had mutual acquaintances.

Even in early August the water was still good. I carried up to 60 ozs at any one time with filterable water stops often enough. I still managed to down 40 plus oz’s between stops… It got HOT out there!

I started to drag on the push between Sherman Pass and White Mt. The heat was getting to me and my body apparently does not like the heat…Kinda already knew this…Weirdly enough around Bald Mountain was the only area that had huckleberries and they were primo!! These made for easy and often pit stops. The southern section of trail was mostly clear of blow downs but a little slower going that the north section. I understand this whole trail system is advertised as mountain biking terrain, but man, I couldn’t imagine. Unless you’re a real bad ass, I envision a lot of pushing of your cycle…But then, I’m not a mountain biker…

I’ve never seen so much cat (cougar, bobcat) and moose poop on one section of trail… The Kettle Crest must have a substantial population of both. Surprisingly enough, I don’t think I saw more than a pile or two of bear scat which I found to be notable and interesting. Unfortunately, I did not see any of these larger critters…

Dropping down to the White Mountain TH after a push of 13:58 and only greeted by a rabbit and a scolding squirrel, I flipped a u-ie and headed back up. I hit the cattle spring at the top just as the sun was setting. I sprinted to an opening to get a shot but as I was getting my camera out, I watched the sun dip below the horizon…Seriously, if I was 15 seconds faster… Still an amazing sunset, so quiet and far out there…

Confession time, NERD ALERT!!! I like to Geocache. Been doing it since 2006. I picked off several on this journey, but I wanted to finish the N-S first then mess around with side adventures on my way back, collecting caches as I went. Barnaby Butte has a cache by the fire lookout tower remnants, so, in the dark, I set off across hillside following my GPS. At GZ I was signing the log and looking south into the very dark night and saw thin orange band of light way off in the distance that I had not seen from the trail. A forest fire! Turns out it was the Williams Flats fire that had started with a lightning strike Friday morning. The fire wasn’t even 24 hours old, but I could see it from 40 miles away!!! Wow!!

When I hit Sherman Pass around 1:30 in the morning I found a soft spot on the ground and wrapped up in my emergency blanket and was lights out for ½ an hour. I woke up not cold but also couldn’t sleep, so up an at’em…

Caught the sunrise as I moved up to Copper Butte and stopped to sit on the trail and enjoy the moment. It was quite peaceful and I’m glad I took the time to sit and enjoy. I got to witness the instant the sun set the evening before as well as the moment it cracked the eastern horizon…

The final push back to Boulder/Deer involved self-motivation, more stunning views of the rolling terrain, and some light harassment of the local bovines…  https://youtu.be/TlQQraxf1tw Just trying to keep it light as I was starting to again flounder with the heat…

I ran into three through-hikers of the Pacific Northwest Trail and got to swap stories/ intel for a solid 15 minutes before moving on. That was fun! 

Got back to the car at 2:11 pm on Sunday with an RT time of 33:07 ready to slam a sando and some suds. The ice in the cooler I packed to keep by beverages and sandwich cold had melted leaving my drinks still quite cold and a soggy, sunken, wet-ass sandwich…Kinda not cool…

Rested and cleaned up a little at the TH before starting the drive back home. Got back to Seattle late Sunday night and was only two hours late to work Monday morning!! Ha!!

Our group of three settled on this hike while looking for an early season two night backpacking trip close to home. We decided we would go as far as we could, and turn around or abort if the conditions warranted it.

We started in the South at White Mountain. The hike up White Mountain was beautiful, with lovely views, and many wildflowers. Near the top we experienced a bit of snow on the trail, but we were mostly able to keep our feet dry. From there to Sherman Peak was sometimes clear, sometimes covered in 1-2 foot deep snow for long sections.

We headed around the West side of Sherman Peak where we camped for the night. If you ever stay here watch out for the evil rabbit! While setting up camp a very cute and friendly snowshoe hare made an appearance, and started nosing around our gear. We made sure our food was secure, but pretty soon it snuck around to the back of my tent and snipped one of my guy lines. I retied the line, and tried to scare the rabbit away but it was unfazed, and just retreated a bit. During the night it came back and cut my line again, and chewed it up.

The next morning in light to moderate rain we crossed Hwy 20 and went up Columbia Mountain on a mostly clear trail. However, going up Jungle hill the snow began to get deeper and more continuous, until by the time we reached Wapaloosie it became difficult to navigate without a GPS. Going down Wapaloosie was a chore due to the deep and wet snow and frequent postholing.

We set up camp that night at Copper Butte. Another hare showed up and I was worried it would cut my guy lines or worse, but this one only seemed interested in finding salt, as it prowled the are licking clean every "pee spot" it could find. Gross. 

We were cold and wet after the day's activities, and decided we had too many miles to go to finish, so we made arrangements for someone to pick us up about midday where Old Stage meets Forest Service Road 2030.

In the morning we had a challenging trek through 4-6' deep snow in the rain with frequent postholing before we met up with the clear, but muddy Old Stage trail/road, and hiked out to 2030.

We probably should have bailed just North of Sherman Peak, but we really wanted to see how far we could get. If we do it again this early in the year we'll definitely bring snowshoes. From time to time there were trees across the trail, but they weren't a major obstacle.

I'm looking forward to doing the whole trail either later this summer, or maybe with snowshoes in the winter.