Deception Lakes to Deception Creek Trailhead on Deception Creek Trail- July 24 & 25, 2022
This was the last leg of a backpacking stint on the PCT after we decided to end our trip early due to injury. We hiked from the PCT camp at Deception Lakes to the campsite about two miles from the highway on the Deception Creek Trail, then hiked to the highway the next morning to get a ride. It was about 10 miles total, we believe, most of it the first day. This hike required climbing, crawling, and clambering through more than a dozen blowdowns, a few of which required us to go packs off. The trail was also quite overgrown, and to get to the junction with the Tonga Ridge Trail required two river crossings. Still, this is one of my favorite trails.
We left the PCT at 11am. The sign that is at the junction where the Deception Creek "Connector Trail" (numbered 1059.2 or 1059b on maps) meets the PCT was almost illegible, so I sharpied some directions on it. A fellow PCT hiker almost went down this trail instead of staying on the PCT, so hopefully I made it more clear. Anyway, we continued down this trail and came to a campsite with a recently used campfire. Right after this camp is a small creek crossing that I went boots off for. We continued downhill and encountered lots of mushrooms and tons of fallen trees.
We stopped at 1:45pm for a little break and met a park ranger named Jess, who graciously gave us some stretchy gauze so we could better compress an injured ankle. We exchanged trail info and she told us about the missing log bridge on the way to the next trail junction. We made it to the first river crossing about an hour after that. This is the crossing over Deception Creek and it was about knee deep in places. The water was fast-flowing and cold, but neither of us lost our footing. What we did lose, however, was the trail. We couldn't find the entry/exit point on the other bank and wrongly guessed downstream as the direction to search for it. This wasn't that bad as playing in rivers is one of my favorite pastimes and it was nice to soak your feet in the 88 degree sunny afternoon. We turned back upstream and eventually found the path back up the opposite bank.
After this crossing is the crossing on the much shallower Sawyer Creek. We got across that easily and made it to a campsite with three tents set up, but we didn't see their owners. We took a break and got back on the trail by 4:30pm. Shortly after this campsite (to the north) is the junction with the Tonga Ridge Trail. This is where the Deception Creek Trail ends (begins for us) in the WTA description of the Deception Creek Trail, and I remembered that it was 5.5 miles from here to the highway. I also knew that there was a great campsite about halfway between this endpoint and the trailhead, so we decided to continue on. Sure enough, after two hours we made it to that fabled campsite by 6:30pm. Along the way we saw the best and loudest river valley waterfall rapids viewpoint in the world, just south of the campsite.
The campsite was unoccupied, but looked like it had been used recently. We made a fire and let out our inner cavepersons; grunting and chanting around it after a tiring four day backpacking journey. I will point out that the path from the campsite to the water that I remembered is very mucky and full of pond-scum, but there is a second path down to a different spot on the river. It is steeper but you can get up and down it if your hands aren't full.
The next morning we hiked the rest of the way out to the highway. One of the log bridges is missing a railing and the in tact railing is bent inward, so you have to sidle across in the middle. The bigger log bridge at the very beginning of the trail is still in good condition. This section of the trail is also the most overgrown. If it is wet out, you cannot stay dry on this trail with all of the leaves brushing you. Mushrooms love it here. Anyway, we made it to the trailhead and took a break while we texted our ride. A group of three young women came up behind us, finishing the trail just a minute or two later. They were the tents we saw at the river crossing the previous day. They graciously offered us a ride to Zeke's Drive-In do we could get better cell-service to meet our ride. So kind of them. Also, the road to the trail has some potholes the size of a sofa, so the cars at the trailhead were parked on the gravel, closer to the highway.
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