Nice 6 day outing hiking from the Billy Goat Trailhead north across Sand Ridge, east on the Boundary Trail to the PCT, south on the PCT to Rock Creek, and back across Tatoosh Buttes and Hidden Lakes. Road to Billy Goat is good gravel most of the way with the final mile rough and steep. There is a lower parking lot and one can walk the road as an alternative.

Beautiful area! Snow free with lots of flowers still going strong. The Boundary Trail between Bunker Hill and the PCT has hundreds of trees down, bring your patience.

Billy Goat / Larch Creek trail: Good shape. Through a burn area nearly the entire way until crossing Larch Pass. McCall Gulch is very pretty. Limited camping here, more sites at Corral Lake.

Sand Ridge: Hiked the trail on the east side. Excellent shape. Nice larch basins and flowers.

Park Pass / Ramon Lakes: Went about a mile up this trail before losing interest. It's completely burned over and rough.

Quartz Lake: Approach trail burned, as did half the lake, but still pretty.

Boundary (Peeve Pass to Pasayten River): Mostly good shape until past Bunker Hill. Nice high trail with great views. Burned between Quartz Mountain and Bunker. West of Bunker is all burn and following the trail takes some car. River ford was easy and not cold.

Boundary (Pasayten River to PCT): Burned over for miles with hundreds of trees down. Most are easily stepped over but it's tiring. No campsites between the river and Soda Creek. Good flat area at the junction with plenty of space. Water source is on the trail about .25 miles before camp, no water in the camp. Trail up to PCT also has lots of trees down but it's through nice forest so more pleasant. Still, bring your patience.

PCT: Hiked south from Castle Pass to Rock Creek. Fantastic views, no trees down, great trail. Some campsites at Woody Pass but no water available here. Also blowing dust overnight.

Rock Creek: Freshly logged out and in good shape. Only one campsite in Coney Basin. More sites at the Pasayten River junction:

Tatoosh Buttes: Small washout while crossing the river. Easily bypassed by hikers, and the river ford was easy, but could be nasty early season. Established signed detour probably easier. Trail logged out the whole way over the buttes. Burned for much of it, with limited water, so bring plenty. Nice meadows on top.

Hidden Lakes: Burned over nearly the entire way back to the trailhead. Upper lake completely burned but is pretty with all the fireweed. Cabins and campsites escaped the fire, as did most of Cougar Lake.

Reached the trailhead around noon. The final 3 miles on the Chiwawa River Rd were unpaved and a bit rough, but would have been fine for most cars.

Headed ~3mi up the trail to the junction with the Rock Creek Tie trail. The first mile or so was slightly overgrown. Crossed three small streams with dry feet, and stepped over (or ducked under) a dozen or so good-sized blowdowns. There was a short section about 1.5mi in where the trail was narrow with steep drop-offs, culminating in a washout that had been bridged, but had since filled up partially with loose rocks and dirt. Falling off the trail here looked fatal; fortunately everything felt stable. A shovel would have been useful.

The trail never got close to Rock Creek, and views were limited to a few glances up towards Estes Butte, but the forest was quite pleasant. Many fairy-slipper orchids, one chipmunk, lots of deer tracks, and two piles of bear scat on the trail.

Didn't encounter a single person in the 5 hours we ended up spending on the trail.

Thought after yesterdays Enchantments thru-hike I'd take it easy today.  Ended up doing 17 miles!  Also quite a shock going from hundreds of other hikers to none.

Rock Creek is a really nice trail.  Lots of streams for drinking and cooling off. Took it out past the Wilderness boundary to about mile 5, where it became quite overgrown.  2 places before that were also brushy, with several down trees (none an issue for hikers).

Hiked back to the junction with the Rock Tie and headed up.  20 to 30 trees down along this, mostly brush-free.  At Basalt Ridge trail, went left about another mile to where there would be nice views (smoke), turned around before reaching high point.  Some brush, trees down.

I doubt these issues will be addressed this year anymore, so for now hikers will have the trail to themselves (normally open to horses and bikes).  

This one goes all the way to Carne Mountain for a possible car shuttle loop at the Phelps T.H..  You'll just have to wait until next year, or at least until the road is open after fire danger decreases.

Hiked up to Basalt Peak from the Basalt Ridge TH at Finner Creek.  The first mile and a half were very mosquito heavy but just as we were getting some relief we entered a burn area  with many blow-downs on the trail which forced us off-trail and to do a lot of climbing and a bit of dog lifting.  Would not recommend this trail in it's current condition.  Once we met-up with the Chiwawa creek trail, much less blow-downs but still some in the burnt over areas near the top of Basalt Peak. 

Trail from the peak down to Basalt pass is in pretty good shape and we met a day hiker at the pass who told us about the alternative (and much higher TH).  We decided to avoid the blowdown mess and looped back via Rock Creek trail.  We encountered a number of blow-downs on this trail as well but they were more manageable though the trail could use some brushing.  The mosquitoes descended upon us again below 4,000ft and we were running to our cars along the Chiwawa river road.