What do you do when bad weather cancels your planned climb of Mt Rainier? Go backpacking in the Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness!
Our backpack started at the Diamond Peak trailhead at the end of USFS road 4030. This road had just melted out and is in its usual adventurous condition. The real adventure began on the initial hike up to the Mt Misery trail. The first mile has several dozen trees down across it, plus lingering snow, making the path circuitous and difficult. Once you reach the top and gain the beautiful meadows of the Mt Misery trail the hiking becomes much easier.
Since we started in the afternoon the first day's hike was about 6 miles total to Clover Spring. The going was decent after the initial section, but we still stopped to clear broken limbs and small trees off the trail. Where we could, we sawed branches off of downfall to make "tree hopping" or "tree limbo" much easier. The camp site at Clover Spring has a convenient spring that fills a hollowed-out log, right on the trail. Camp here and you will have expansive views to the south.
The next day we hiked to Indian Corral, where several trails intersect (Crooked Creek, Panjab, Mt Misery). Dunlap spring burbles from in the woods not far from ideal camp sites. We decided to take a long break to dry the condensation off of our gear, made a note of the camping possibilities here, and continued to Oregon Butte.
At Oregon Butte we stopped for a nice rest at the fire lookout and took in the views to the Seven Devils and Wallowas. On days with extremely clear weather you can see Mt Adams and Rainier in the distance. It was still early in the day so we decided to head back to Indian Corral to camp, making for 12 miles of hiking total with about 2,000' of gain for the day.
Our hike out the third day completed our out-and-back trip.
Expect to see beautiful flowers, animal tracks, and if you're lucky, the animals themselves. My hiking companions saw a bear but I wasn't quick enough to see it before it ran into the woods.
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