Following up on Hannah's prior report, another WTA BCRT finished up work on the Prince Cr trail earlier this week. The trail was cleared of downed logs from Lake Chelan to the junction with the North Fork Prince Cr trail (#1254). We also re-established the tread and cut back brush to the bridge at 2700' with additional tread work and brushing done to the N Fork junction. The N Fork trail is clear of logs until at least 4500' where we turned around, though there's plenty of brush. The bridges at 2700' across Prince and at 4150' across the Middle Fork Prince Cr were both in good condition. One of our crew made it to Cub Lake without significant trail difficulties or snow.

During our five days, we saw at least one small rattlesnake, several ticks, and, on our way out, four piles of bear poop. I also noticed deer and coyote tracks. Morels could be found in selective areas.

There was plentiful water -- at roughly 2110', 2850', 3450', 3680', 3750', and 3850'.

There were camps at the Prince Cr bridge crossing (1-2 tents) and roughly 4000' (2 tents) plus our big one at 3100'. (We fit 10 tents) The views were nice from our camp, but none of us enjoyed all the soot and dust. I'm not sure I've ever been so dirty. If you do want to camp there and are ok with the creek noise, you might check out the sites near the creek which at least had some live trees.

For an area that was burned last year, the trail was still quite pleasant in most places. Some areas looked like war zones, completely denuded. But in most areas, grasses and flowers have returned. There were some green trees. Views of the lake and surrounding mountains were wonderful -- far better than those you get going up the Fish Cr trail. If you want to avoid the crowds on the Lakeshore trail, I'd recommend heading up Prince for a half-day trip or quick overnight.

Hello Hikers! We just finished the first Volunteer Vacation of the season working on the first 3 miles of the Prince Creek Trail, and it was beautiful out! The trail is now widened up and there is a BCRT out there right now to continue our work after the first 3 miles, so it should go up even further. The wildflowers are blooming and the views are gorgeous. However, I do want to caution people that we had a rattlesnake sighting in camp after every work day and they were very comfortable around humans! Please be safe when interacting with wildlife. Additionally, there were a couple ticks found but nothing imbedded. 

Despite those warnings, don't let the critters deter you from hiking this trail, it was really stunning and there is a small waterfall about a mile and half in that is great to cool down at. Happy Hiking!

Update for August 11: Fire is at and beyond Stehekin.  Excellent photojournalism and associated story in Sunday's Seattle Times.  The effort to slow, to divert, and to protect the structures associated with Stehekin and environs is remarkable from the standpoint of both the inhabitants as well as the fire fighters.

Update Status for August 3: Fire is above and extending north of Stehekin.  Heat and dry air have resulted in considerable fire growth.

Update Status for August 1: The cooler temperatures and cloudy weather enable fire fighters to work on and with the Stehekin community to make their structures and property more fire resistant (see Figure 3) for an illustration of the spot work occurring.  The next eight day plus stretch of hot, dry weather will be critical.  The fire is active and continues to expand.  The effort by both fire fighters and community members is amazing -- I do not think any of us can imagine how hard this is for all concerned.  In many ways, the stress and effort will only abate when it begins to snow.

Recommendation: Get the free app, Watch Duty (however, donations are appreciated as it is a non-profit).  It and its associated ‘reporters’ stay on top of almost all of the fires occurring across the west from Washington to California and from Montana to Oklahoma and Texas.  You can turn on and off notifications to specific areas (planning a trip to the Crazy Mountains of Montana, for example) or specific ongoing fires.

Updated Status for July 30: Cooler, moister (but no rain) weather has helped.  Anticipate heat and greater fire activity to return.

Updated Status for July 27: Level 3 evacuation for Stehekin ordered for 8:00 am, Sunday, July 28.

Updated Status for July 25, 2024: Fire size is over 31,000 acres, more trail closures on the Twisp River side of the Sawtooths, Level 2 Evacuation for Stehekin.

Update Status for July 16, 2024: Fire size is now 20,348 acres; most of the fire activity is east of Moore Point (see Figure 4).

Status for July 8,2024: Pioneer Fire has grown rapidly to 9,055 acres (Figure 1), smoke has greatly increased, and Figure Evaluation and Closures areas have increased.  USFS Roads 82, 8020, 8215, 8250 are closed; trails 1248.1, 1250.1, 1254, 1255, 1257, 1258, 1259, 1260, 1261, others (check local Ranger District).  USFS trail names do not always correspond with WTA's and many of the minor USFS trails are not found on WTA. Air Quality State wide has become poorer as a result of the heat dome and the fires.

Good sources of information

• The National Incident Information System (inciweb [https://inciweb.wildfire.gov/]) and the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center (has morning briefings [https://gacc.nifc.gov/nwcc/]). Maps in Figure 1 show the borders and hot spots associated with the fire.  It is important to realize that this is the best estimate and that the fire damage within this perimeter will range from no effect to total destruction.
• The Current Wildfire Incident Information for Washington State; this site is maintained by the WA Dept of Natural Resources (https://www.dnr.wa.gov/Wildfires) . Part way down on this page is ‘Active Wildfires in Washington’  and below that is the ‘DNR Wildfire Intel Dashboard.  Make sure you check the box that says next to it: “I recognize the intended use of this dashboard and wish t…” Check this and the box saying ‘Go to the Dashboard’ becomes active.  
• A source I discovered several weeks ago from the Kitsap Sun online Newspaper. This includes a map, heat, and  smoke and smoke direction (https://datacentral.kitsapsun.com/fires/).

All of these sources will have links to the closures, but there are separate websites for each US Forest Ranger District, for each National Park (e.g., for North Cascades: https://www.nps.gov/noca/index.htm), Recreation Area, or Monument.  WS Dot has a map of closures (https://wsdot.com/Travel/Real-time/Map/).

All these agencies or groups have twitter and Facebook pages.

Finally, there are no closures, and you can go.  Three  last things to check: avalanche danger (seasonally appropriate), weather (always appropriate), and air quality.   Two good sites for air quality:

• Purple air
• Kitsap Sun again is recommended.

Mt Mike provided these additional resources:

1. For smoke forecasts in WA state, I recommend the interagency smoke page at https://wasmoke.blogspot.com/. The Canadian smoke forecast at https://firesmoke.ca/forecasts/current/ also includes the US.
2. For fire locations nationwide, you can also look at the ESRI Wildfire map that shows info from a number of sources at https://livingatlas.arcgis.com/wildfireaware/#.

There are many other sites, but I (and Mt Mike regarding the last 2) have found these to be consistently reliable and informative.

Let’s hope for a great summer and early fall with few or no fires.

Did this trail as a two day, one night, backpacking trip. I took the Lady Express Ferry from Chelan to Prince Creek on Saturday and then caught the ferry from Stehekin back to Chelan on Sunday. It was really beautiful. The first day was a slog for me. Ended up being about 11.5 miles and 2200 ft elevation gain to Moore Point where I camped on Saturday night. LOTS of ups and downs.

The first part of the hike was exposed with great views and tons of Balsam Root blooming right now. Several waterfalls across the lake were visible, including Domke Falls, which were visible for several miles of trail time. At Moore Point there was a waterfall visible across the lake. The bathroom was great at that campground and there were only two other groups there with several picnic tables. Tons of views the entire way. Snow capped peaks and wild flowers everywhere. Not much wild life but lots of lizards, some hawks, some chipmunks. Couldn’t have asked for better weather. Wasn’t too cold sleeping although had to stay bundled up. 

Total mileage ended up being almost 19 mi with 3400 ft elevation gain. 

My friend and I did a four day larch hunting trip out in the Chelan Sawtooth Wilderness from. We hiked the Prince Creek Trail, Chelan Summit Trail, and Purple Creek Trail.

Day 1 (9/30): Prince Creek Trail to Chelan Summit Trail Shelter

We took the Lady Express from Fields Point Landing and were dropped off at Prince Creek around 10:30. We followed the Lakeshore Trail across the bridge over Prince Creek and quickly found the well marked Prince Creek trail. The trail was well maintained and easy to follow, but clearly does not see as much use as the Lakeshore Trail. The first four miles of the trail had no creek access and I imagine it could get quite hot as you head up as there isn't a lot of shade. It was raining for us so this wasn't an issue. We saw two baby rattlesnakes within the first mile or so, but they were very slow in the cold. After about four miles we came to a crossing of Prince Creek, this was the first water source of the trail. There was no bridge, but it was an easy ford for me and my friend opted to rock hop. We had lunch on the far side of the creek it a small campsite. There was a fire ring and you could probably squeeze two tents in. After the creek the trail became more forested and was very overgrown and brushy which means we got soaked. The fall colors were really starting to show though. We crossed several small streams between the Prince Creek crossing and the Chelan Summit Trail junction, one had a log bridge and the others were easy to hop across without getting our feet wet. There were a couple small blow downs to get over, but nothing bad. It looked like a crew had been through recently clearing out blowdowns. After about 8 miles we headed north on the Chelan Summit Trail and camped at the shelter just past the junction. The shelter itself only had one or two bunks you could actually sleep in, as well as a nice table with a bench. There are some holes in the roof so I wouldn't recommend it if it was raining heavily. Just below the shelter there were several good looking tent sites. There is also a toilet here, but its in view of the campsite, shelter, and trail so use at your own risk.  There's a little clearing just down the trail from the shelter that had beautiful sunset views.

 Day 2 (10/1): Chelan Summit Trail to Tuckaway Lake

We had a slow start because we didn't want to put on our wet hiking clothes from the day before. The trail kept climbing and we started seeing larches not long after we passed the junction to Surprise Lake. The larches just kept getting better and better the higher we climbed. We detoured  off the summit trail to go to Star Lake for lunch. The lake was beautiful -- nestled between Star peak and a big grove of larches. We other people for the first time on our trip at the lake, there were several groups camped there. After lunch we went back to the summit trail and continued on. We hiked for a couple miles through an old burn before heading back into the larches. We reached the trail junction for Oval Pass  where there was some camping and another toilet. We opted to head up to Tuckaway lake via the Oval Pass trail to camp for the night. There were two other groups at the lake and not many campsites. The lake was ringed with larches, but it wasn't  as stunning as Star. This was the coldest night of the trip for us. While we were cooking dinner some of the water I had collected to filter had frozen in the bag and we noticed some of the small streams were frozen over in the morning.

 Day 3 (10/2): Chelan Summit Trail to Juanita Lake

After breakfast and packing up camp we headed back down to the Summit Trail. We spent the morning crossing the open hillsides and then climbing up and over a small pass. We then dropped nearly two thousand feet down to and we we're out of the larches. Along the way we passed the Eagle Pass trail junction which had a nice looking camp by it, there was another campsite not long after that. After the Eagle Pass junction it was clear that this area didn't see as much use and there was a lot of evidence of animal activity, although the only animals we saw on the trip were one deer, some sooty grouse, and the two snakes. It was kind of an eerie forest and wasn't somewhere I personally would have liked to camp. There were a few minor blowdowns through this section, but nothing bad. Eventually we started climbing back up. On the climb back up we passed Deephole Spring, which had a large camp and a stream running through it. Not long after this we got back up into the larches and had some of the best views of the trip. The larches up here just go on for miles covering all of the mountainsides. We took a short break at the top of the climb where we officially entered the Lake Chelan National Recreation Area. We continued for a couple more miles before ending our day at Lake Juanita. We took a quick detour to check out War Creek Pass to see if there was a good view, and there weren't so save yourself the trip. Lake Juanita was kind of marshy and not particularly beautiful. It was kind of a pain getting water without getting our feet wet or falling in, but the water itself wasn't too gross to drink. We camped up above the lake on its far side and had a beautiful view of the larch covered mountains.

 Day 4 (10/3): Purple Creek Trail to Stehekin

We got up early and didn't make breakfast because we were determined to make it down to Stehekin by 11 to catch the shuttle to the bakery. There was a short climb up to Purple Pass, and then it was all down hill. At the pass we got our final expansive view of the larches and could even see Lake Chelan way down below. The upper trail was a bit rougher than we expected with lots of rocks and sticks, so we had to watch our steps. As we descended there was also a lot of Snowbrush growing over the trail that we had to push through and it often coincided with narrower trail, so again I was watching my step pretty carefully. There were a lot of great views of Lake Chelan on the way down. Eventually the forest opened up and the trail became easier to navigate so we were able to cruise the rest of the way down to the lake. We somehow managed the decent of 5,800 feet in 4 hours and popped out in the campground by the visitor center a few minutes before the boat got there. We made a quick bakery run to get treats before loading back up on the Lady Express and back to Fields Point.

 Despite the cold and the first day of rain, this was one of the most stunning backpacking trips either one of us had been on. The larches were at their peak and I have never seen so many before. We spent the better part of two days hiking through them and soaking it in. It's truly hard to describe how magnificent it was out there. Also the sheer diversity of this hike made it really fascinating. We started in a dry ponderosa forest with snakes, hiked through subalpine fir and Doug fir forests, through larches, and all the way back down to lake Chelan. There was a little bit of everything. We were also pleasantly surprised about how well maintained the trail was and how easy it was to follow given how little information there is out there compared to other trails and how few people we saw out there. It did seem like a crew had been through recently because there were a lot of freshly cut blowdowns. The lack of crowds was also a huge plus for us. I think we saw 12 people in total, all but two of which were camping at the lakes. If you're looking for a beautiful, but challenging, larch hike and want to avoid the crowds I can't recommend this loop enough!