We did a 2-night backpacking trip on the Midnight Ridge and Kettle Crest trails, with a car shuttle. It was a very scenic hike, with wildlife (mule deer, birds, a hare, etc.), wildflowers (paintbrush, yarrow, etc.), and a few alpine huckleberries (yum!). The Kettle Crest trail was in excellent shape, and the Midnight Ridge trail in very good shape. We saw only 1 person the whole time we were out there; unfortunately it is open rangeland, and we did encounter cows. A few bugs here and there, but nothing to worry about.
More details: We started on the Midnight Ridge trail, which goes 4.5 miles or so, mostly up, to reach the Kettle Crest trail. There were 2 trees down on that trail, but there wasn't any problem getting over them -- the forest service had apparently done a log-out earlier in the spring.
From this junction, we hiked about 1.5 miles north on the Kettle Crest trail to a good spring and were planning to camp there. However, there was a large herd of cows in residence, and the campsite was fouled with fresh cow pies. So we went back to just north of the Midnight Ridge trail to a small and somewhat sloped camp site near another spring (there is a good pipe for that spring just downhill from the Kettle Crest trail). That camp site would NOT be good if there is a thunderstorm -- a gully feeds right into it. There were a lot of bees and some small flies in the area, but they seemed to be more interested in the plant life than in us, and they didn't bother us.
On day 2, we continued south on the Kettle Crest Trail. About 1/2 mile south of our camp we reached the junction with the Old Stage Trail (which leads back to where we started from, so you can make a nice loop if you want to). There is an excellent camp site there, which would have been much better than the one we used if we had known about it -- you would just have to carry water 1/2 mile from the spring. From there the Kettle Crest trail starts climbing 1000+ feet up to the top of Copper Butte, and then back down, with some more up and down throughout the day. We hiked about 7 miles that day to reach another spring and a decent camp site at the junction with the Jungle Hill trail. The area around the spring was swampy, so there were a few mosquitos around, but surprisingly few considering the swamp. We got hit by a thunderstorm, with rain and hail, and luckily the tent site we chose didn't turn into a puddle (unlike the one closer to the fire ring).
On day 3, we hiked about 7 miles, including about a 500 foot climb and the rest mostly downhill, to where we had left the second car, at Sherman Pass.
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