WTA volunteers participated in a Back Country Response Team July 10-12 clearing downed trees and conducting annual maintenance along the trail between Bear Pasture and Sullivan Fire Lookout. All trees were removed from the Crowell Ridge trail and the crew continued to logout the North Fork trail and cleared logs to within a half a mile of the Slate Creek Trail junction.
The jokes and laughs were many during this work party. Over half the crew traveled from western Washington to join the team. Be advised that the USFS road into the Bear Pasture trailhead is very overgrown with alder and has a few muddy holes that require slow driving. The brush is very thick in the last few miles to the trailhead and will most definitely scratch vehicles.
Wildlife signs were minimal with a few piles of bear scat on the access road and a few more on the section of trail closest to the Sullivan Fire Lookout. No bears were spotted, although we looked for them often. Humming birds visited camp in the evenings and many winged critters were found above tree line from mosquitoes, to butterflies, to biting flies, horseflies, and some industrious bees.
The cold water spring located .4 miles below the trail junction on the North Fork trail was our only water source and required a dipping cup to fill our gravity filtration devices. We found three other parties had signed the TH register the week or so before our BCRT. Thru-hikers and sectional hikers of the PNT will have a nice “mostly open” trail between Bear Pasture and Red Bluff this summer due to the section from Red Bluff to the Wilderness Boundary having already been logged out earlier this year. The huckleberry bushes on south facing slopes were laden with berries but east facing slopes still had green berries. Now would be a great time to pick berries on the North Fork trail!
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