Salmo-Priest Loop — Monday, Aug. 15, 2016

Eastern Washington > Selkirk Range

Following the Thunder Creek trailwork project, I planned a daytrip to hike the Salmo Loop in order to maximize hiking (it's Hike-a-Thon time!) while minimizing drive time. I was joined by one member of the trailwork crew, as well as two friends from the Spokane Mountaineers. We opted to hike the Shedroof Divide portion of the Loop first in order to spend our afternoon in the shade of the inland temperate rainforest. I think the highs were in the 90s in Spokane, but it was far cooler on the Salmo Loop, and whenever we took a break in the shade we discovered it could be almost chilly with the breeze. In other words, it was perfect hiking weather. It was also near-perfect trail conditions for us! There were no trees down between the TH and Cabinet Pass. There were only 6-8 small trees down between the Pass and the trail to the Basin, although there were a few more on the sidetrail up to Little Snowy Top and the fire lookout, which is a not-to-be-missed excursion when hiking the loop. On the Basin trail there were another 6-8 trees down between the Divide and the Salmo River Crossing. The PNTA crew was going in on Tuesday, so those will probably be logged out by the end of the week. There weren't any trees down between the river and the upper TH, although I could see that someone illegally cut out the few that had been down with a chainsaw. This is wilderness, so seeing tell-tale signs of chainsaw use makes me disappointed in the poor-choicers. Next year I'll try to beat the lazy ones to it with my crosscut, as I appreciate the challenge. I was also disappointed in the poor-choicers at the Little Snow Top Lookout, where I was sad to see damage to the structure. I was unable to hike the Loop last summer due to trail closures and wildfires (I was scheduled to hike it two days after the closure went into effect last year); in 2014 the Lookout was in good shape. This year the outer door is broken and on the ground outside, someone left the inner door standing open (and it was possibly open last winter, as there was water damage to the floor inside the door), people haven't been closing the shutters when they leave (and I was unable to close two of them, so they're still open), several windows are either cracked or broken, and people left trash both inside & out (I packed out as much as I could carry, but there's still more). This is why we can't have nice things. It makes me especially sad since the lookout was repaired through a grant from the sales of the 100 Hikes in the Inland NW book, where this hike appears as #15. See page 19 of the book if you have the 2nd edition. We should all work harder to keep it nice: LNT and all that good stuff. Okay, enough of the downers. Here's why you should hike it now: I have never seen the Loop looking so green, and I've hiked it almost every year since 2001 (and sometimes twice for good luck). We have been blessed with some mid-summer rainfall to make up for last year, and the wildflowers are responding with fantastic blooms. Go now, it's gorgeous! Maybe bring a trash bag for the stuff I missed at the lookout. We didn't have time at the end of the day for the side-trip (by car) to the nearby Salmo Lookout, but there is a Passports in Time project to restore the Lookout this summer. Long-term, there are plans to add the Lookout to the reservation system, which would be amazing! In the meantime, it would be a fun side-trip to check out the crew's progress. Sunrise and sunset is the best time to visit the Lookout. We camped near the crew on Sunday night, since we had been using the campsite for the trailwork all weekend, and the crew was just arriving for the PIT project that started on Monday--it was interesting to hear about the project, as well as one of the volunteer's experience as the lookout staffer on Salmo Mountain in the 70s. According to my copy of Ray Kresek's book on Fire Lookouts of the Northwest, it was built in 1927 and replaced several times over the years, with the current Lookout, a 10' TT flat, placed in 1964. Cool wildlife sighting of the hike: there's a huge whitebark pine just north of the end of the Divide on the flank of (big) Snowy Top, and there were two Clark's nutcrackers feeding on pine seeds there.

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