Sawtooth Ridge — Friday, Jun. 19, 2015

Eastern Washington > Palouse and Blue Mountains

Sawtooth Ridge is hike #117 in Day Hiking Eastern Washington, were it is described as a well-tended trail. Unfortunately, we did not find that to be the case as we attempted to hike all the way to the Wenaha River and back on this overnight visit. We started mid-afternoon on Friday, with a goal of hiking in about two miles to the spur-trail junction described in the guidebook, then venturing out on the spur to Burnt Flat and the Lady Spring Camp indicated on our Wenaha-Tucannon maps. We did find water, but not the camp. We also found trash left behind by unethical campers, and a huge (unethical if not illegal) salt lick at the location that most closely matched the camp marked on our map. The spur trail had seen recent use, as evidenced by the existence of a new campsite located too close to the water & dug out to make flat spots. It was very disappointing to see so many examples of how not to have a LNT camp. On Saturday morning I awoke just in time to catch the spectacular sunrise, and then we packed up just our daypacks to make our attempt to hike to the river. We didn't make it far beyond the spur trail junction before we started to have difficulty locating the trail tread. We did manage to go about a mile beyond the Oregon border, but we were forced to abandon the hike before it started to drop downhill to the river. This trail needs some serious attention before it disappears entirely! My trip report sounds far too negative, so let me close with the positives. The part we were able to hike hugged the ridge line almost the entire way, so the views were incredible. The wildflowers are in full bloom right now, and there were so many varieties I couldn't begin to name them all. There were hillsides blue & purple with lupine and penstemon, patches of red & yellow columbine, and I even saw some sulfur lupine. The butterflies were everywhere, but I didn't see a single mosquito the entire trip. This trail needs some boots on the ground, so go hike it and help wear the tread back to visibility. Even though we didn't make it all the way to the river, we did make it to about the six mile mark, not counting the spur trail (and all of our wandering around trying to locate Lady Camp).