Kettle Crest Trail — Thursday, May. 23, 2019

Our group of three settled on this hike while looking for an early season two night backpacking trip close to home. We decided we would go as far as we could, and turn around or abort if the conditions warranted it.

We started in the South at White Mountain. The hike up White Mountain was beautiful, with lovely views, and many wildflowers. Near the top we experienced a bit of snow on the trail, but we were mostly able to keep our feet dry. From there to Sherman Peak was sometimes clear, sometimes covered in 1-2 foot deep snow for long sections.

We headed around the West side of Sherman Peak where we camped for the night. If you ever stay here watch out for the evil rabbit! While setting up camp a very cute and friendly snowshoe hare made an appearance, and started nosing around our gear. We made sure our food was secure, but pretty soon it snuck around to the back of my tent and snipped one of my guy lines. I retied the line, and tried to scare the rabbit away but it was unfazed, and just retreated a bit. During the night it came back and cut my line again, and chewed it up.

The next morning in light to moderate rain we crossed Hwy 20 and went up Columbia Mountain on a mostly clear trail. However, going up Jungle hill the snow began to get deeper and more continuous, until by the time we reached Wapaloosie it became difficult to navigate without a GPS. Going down Wapaloosie was a chore due to the deep and wet snow and frequent postholing.

We set up camp that night at Copper Butte. Another hare showed up and I was worried it would cut my guy lines or worse, but this one only seemed interested in finding salt, as it prowled the are licking clean every "pee spot" it could find. Gross. 

We were cold and wet after the day's activities, and decided we had too many miles to go to finish, so we made arrangements for someone to pick us up about midday where Old Stage meets Forest Service Road 2030.

In the morning we had a challenging trek through 4-6' deep snow in the rain with frequent postholing before we met up with the clear, but muddy Old Stage trail/road, and hiked out to 2030.

We probably should have bailed just North of Sherman Peak, but we really wanted to see how far we could get. If we do it again this early in the year we'll definitely bring snowshoes. From time to time there were trees across the trail, but they weren't a major obstacle.

I'm looking forward to doing the whole trail either later this summer, or maybe with snowshoes in the winter.