1/20/07,MOSTLY CLEARED OF BLOWDOWNS, GREAT FOOTBRIDGES AND BENCHES ALONG THE WAY, LOVELY WOODLAND TRAIL, SNOW AT UPPER HALF OF TRIP,BUT ONLY FEW INCHES, LOTS OF CREEK WATERFALLS, MOSSES. WATCH FOR FURTHER LANDSLIDES ONTO TRAIL THO FROM SATURATED SOIL.

The Upper Big Creek Loop (#827.1) was cleared of blow down on Dec 28.

Today I started at the Big Creek Campground and went up the Upper Big Loop trail to the Ellinor connector trail. I turned around just before the Lower Mount Ellinor Trailhead. My snowshoes were dead weight on this hike, I lugged them all the way up and all the way back. The only snow I encountered was at 1700 feet and was only patchy. There was one fresh blow-down on the trail, I thought it was small enough for me to be able to move but it was not. There is a very nice over look 3 miles and 1750 up from the Big Creek Campground and this was my turn around point today. The sun came out briefly and the view of Lake Cushman was nice. I brewed a cup of tea at the viewpoint and this combined with doing a shorter then normal hike gave me a nice hikers high that carried me all the way back to the car. There were two other parties on the trail today and one of them had a WTA sticker on their car.

Today I started at the Big Creek Campground 980 feet elevation and hiked up the Upper Big Creek loop to the Mount Ellinor Connector trail then up past the Lower Mount Ellinor Trial Head almost making it to the Upper Mount Ellinor Trail Head. Round trip ten miles with 2,320 feet elevation gain. Trail is free of mud and there is not any water flowing over the trail. I find that pretty amazing considering the wet weather. It started snowing just before the junction with the lower trail. There was about two inches of snow on the ground near the Upper Trail Head. The wind was really howling up on the Mountain and it seemed like a good idea to turn around at 3,300 feet.

This is really a report for the upper big creek loop and the Ellinor Connector trail. Six inches of snow at the junction of the connector trail. I made it about a mile up the the Ellinor connector trail and had to turn back because even with my snowshoes I was sinking too much and it was too much work. I was sinking almost to my knees with my 22 inch snowshoes on. It's 6 miles to the summit of Ellinor from the Big Creek Campground. That is something to keep in mind when you can not drive your car to the lower Ellinor Trailhead due to snow. Upper Big Creek Loop had six inches of snow at the most and it was meltin fast.