Rattlesnake Trail, Mount Misery, Turkey Creek

Chasing sun and snow free trails, we drove east, and found ourselves in the Wenaha-Tucannon wilderness. Never heard of it? We hadn't either, but as far as we could tell, it was the only dry place in the state for a four-day trip.

We started at the Panjab campground trailhead, and took the Rattlesnake trail -- somewhat steep (but not bad by cascades standards) up to the Indian Corral. A tip to avoid a stream crossing is to not cross through the campground, but walk the 4712 road a little ways until the "camping information" sign, cut down to the creek and take a downed log across, then find the trail going up the ridge. This trail goes through a recent burn: it's dry and hot, plus it's brushy and has tons of blowdown -- but has nice views, and it gets you to the ridge pretty quickly.

We followed the Mount Misery trail to Oregon Butte, and stayed up on mostly open 5-6,000' ridges for the next three days. There was no snow on the trail, nice views to the Wallowas, and great wildflower meadows, but the blowdown was pretty bad in places. Apparently these trails don't get logged out until elk season. The Turkey Creek trail (took this down) was in better shape, and in very lovely older forest, with a few nice camp spots. Saw tons of elk sign, but no elk. Very few other people, either.

Up high, water is limited to scattered springs, snowpatches (they'll be gone soon) and a few small seasonal creeks -- so plan carefully. The best water source was Oregon Butte Spring, which is just below the lookout (great camps on this ridge). Alnus spring (near Indian corral) was nearly dry, and we never found many of the others. Also, signs are missing or hard to find and trails get faint in places -- bring a good map.

A sampling of the wildflowers: scarlet gillia, dutchman's breeches, Brown's peony, calypso orchid, larkspur, white and purple penstemons, sulphur lupine, giant-head clover, elkhorn clarkia...