Walked the trail about 4 miles out to near the Oregon border.  Plenty of flowers blooming.  This is a very easy hike with good views as far as the Wallowas.

We were planning on hiking Round Butte, but there was an impassible snow drift in Rd 64, so we decided to give Sawtooth a try.  My wife and I have hiked most of the trails in the Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness, but had yet to hike Sawtooth.

I would not recommend this trail to casual or novice overnight backpackers.  Although I do have a caveat to that, which I'll save till the end.  It would be okay for a day hike if you only went out about 4 miles and then turned back around. 

As an overnight backpacker, you probably need to get to a water source, which means you'll need to hike all the way down to the Wenaha River.  The last 6 miles of the trail are not in good shape.  There's a lot of brush to fight and steep scree fields to cross.  It's very difficult to find the trail.  There are many places where game trails are more visible than the "real" trail and they will try to lead you astray. There are no switchbacks on this trail.  It just goes straight down in the last 3 miles from about 5000ft to 2800ft.  So it's pretty intense.

That being said, if you're familiar with the Wenaha Wilderness, Sawtooth isn't too hard to navigate or the most physically challenging.  I'm only speaking relatively here compared to some of the other trails you'll encounter in the Wenaha Wilderness.  If you have a GPS or good topo map, it's not too hard to find your way, as the trail never strays too far from the ridge line.  Blazing your own trail along the crest of the ridgeline usually gets you into trouble because you'll inevitably come to a cliff.  But you can actually just take the ridgeline down the whole way on Sawtooth....well...almost....there are a few large outcroppings that you'll need to go around.  But DO NOT attempt this trail without a good map or GPS, because the ridge does fork a couple times and you would be very sorry if you picked the wrong fork.  

Now, for the caveat.  If you don't want to hike the entire 10 miles down to the Wenaha River, there is Lady Camp.  You'll come to a fork in the trail at about 3 miles.  The trail is very well maintained up to this point.  You'll want to veer left (or to the east) and this is the trail to Lady Spring/Camp.  We didn't actually make it to Lady Camp.  And we didn't find the actual spring, either.  We followed the trail for about .5 mile and decided we'd better turn around, because we didn't have enough time.  But based on the fact that the trail to Lady Camp looks to be used very regularly, I would feel pretty confident in telling someone that there is an established camp site there with a year-round spring.  So if you're looking for a very easy 4 mile each way overnight with an elevation change of only about 200ft, I would recommend Sawtooth to Lady Camp.

Beautiful day for a snowshoe trip. Parked at the Touchet Corral trailhead, just north of Bluewood Ski Area. North Fork Touchet River Road was iced but plowed and my AWD was able to make it to the parking area just fine.

Hiking up Touchet Corral Trail was a snap. About four inches of fresh powder had been cut by snow machines earlier that day, so the trail was easy to follow without getting bogged down. About three miles up, the trail flattened out leading to Burnt Flat Corral junction. I headed west along USFS 46 until heading south towards Sawtooth Ridge.

I only made it about a half-mile down the ridge before stopping for lunch. The powder was incredibly deep, and the snowpack was deeper. When I stepped out of my snowshoes I sank to above my waist. Cutting trail in the powder took a lot longer than I anticipated, so I ended up turning back before I got a real view. Next time, I'll hitch a ride on a snow machine up the Touchet Corral Trail to save some time.

I had a gorgeous day hiking sawtooth Ridge in the snow today. Lots of fresh crittter tracks in the winter wonderland but nary a human all day. Packed snow on the road started at the Bluewood ski area and was passable along the skyline road in my passenger car. However it is likely that the next good storm will close vehicle access for the winter. The trail had 4-8 inches of snow and was easy to follow.

<3 the Blue Mountains!

If you enjoy a peaceful hike among a rainbow of wildflowers, then this is the hike for you. Plenty of spectacular viewpoints. There were very few other hikers on the trail. A portion of the trail is beginning to be reclaimed by nature, so if you plan to hike to the WA/OR border, be sure to bring long pants so your legs don’t get scratched up. We decided to turn around a bit before we reached the border, due to the trail being overgrown. Overall, this was a great day hike!