Summit Lake, Clearwater — Wednesday, Sep. 3, 2025

Quick overnight to explore Celery Meadow and the condition of roads and trail. I included Summit Lake as I'm sure many of you are trying to find a way in.

From the coke ovens followed 7710/7720 11.9 miles to parking spot at the hairpin. Hyundai Tucson did great. Didn't scrape at all. In my opinion, the road up isn't as bad as some have reported though does have plenty of potholes, some fairly deep. The pavement on the 2nd bridge at the crossing of East Fork South Prairie Creek is washed out but easily passable hugging the inside against the guardrail. Many potholes were even worse than this crossing. So you made it... now what?

Could not find any resemblance of a trail. Maybe I didn't look hard enough but I believe it to be non-existent. It was an absolutely brutal climb pushing through the trees and the rotting forest floor. Much of this climb was spent barging through branches and a million spider webs with active spiders. I would consider most of my route up and down a bushwhack. I considered turning back at one point due to the sheer density of trees, small and large, that my trekking poles lead me through. Head down! I put my reading glasses on for eye protection. Yes it was that bad.

Arrived at Celery Meadow to find pure solitude! Amazing evening with the birds, elk and chipmunks. Walked up to check out the lake (swamp) then turned back to make the descent. Oh boy. I recorded the track down which is roughly what I took up. I'm an experienced, agile hiker and found this travel to be quite challenging given the softness of the forest floor (mud baskets would be excellent here) and again the density. Trail conditions are marked on the map but it's mostly off-trail. It is 1900' in 1.7 miles so yeah, steep.

I am quite scratched, banged and bruised up after barging through trees and sliding down loose material. Sketchy! Take what you want from all this, the spiders would be preferred. I'll keep the Barred Owl!