Kelley Creek

My first choice for a hike was the twenty mile round trip bicycle ride to the Sulphur Mtn trail head, plus the 5ish mile hike to the summit then back. But with the forecast heat i decided it was not reasonable. So i chose to explore Kelley Creek, knowing there is an extension from the Iron Goat mid construction to this trail. I knew there would be blow-downs but speculated they were greatly exaggerated.
Anyway when i drove by the Martin Creek trail head of the Iron Goat the parking lot was overflowing. A short distance up the road the Kelley Creek trail head was empty. There's almost enough room for two cars.
The beginning of the trail is located on an abandoned road bed. It's chocked with brush and unappealing to walk through. It does eventually open up near the Wilderness Boundary. At this point i found the trail in decent shape, considering its minimally maintained. Looks like the lower 2 miles was logged out recently...but tread is faint at times. Route finding required. 2 miles in is where every thing changes. On the contrary to my speculation that the blow-downs being exaggerated...i found it greatly understated! The swath of blow downs is 3/4 of a mile wide! There must be 1000's of them. It only lets up shorty gaining the meadows on the North side of Captian Point. Once in the meadows the going is pretty easy. Headed toward Scorpion Mountain i had some serous thoughts of heading out via Johnson ridge and out Beckler river road and hitch hike back. This would have required an an over night bivy.....as i have other obligations for Sunday. I decided to make the return trip a mile short of Scorpion Mtn.