Summary

I did a 1-night backpack from the Hex Mountain trailhead 15 miles along Sasse Ridge to Point 5891/Peak 5892, then retraced my steps on Sunday. I camped at the saddle just below that peak (1 mile south of The Louvre). This is a lovely ridge walk with plenty of flowers and greenery in the spring, and great views almost the entire way. But on a warm day, it could quickly turn unpleasant unless there's a strong breeze; it's very exposed with no reliable water. 20% of the trail was covered in snow or obscured by debris from the 2017 Jolly Mountain Fire. But when the trail vanished, it was easy to simply follow the ridge and pick it up again. The only difficult section was on the Jolly Creek Trail (just north of the junction with the Jolly Mountain Trail), where 40 degree snow covers the trail for a short stretch above a cliff. More details on each section of the trail below. Stats are from my GPS+barometer watch, and times are moving times (not including breaks).

Trailhead to Hex Mountain (NF-116, FS #1343): 3.35 miles, +2800', -80', 1 hour 20 mins

A popular hike with great views and a few wildflowers. Very exposed, hot, and dusty. No water. There's potential for a breeze once you get off the road and onto the trail. Easy to miss the trailhead and easy to make wrong turns on the road portion (bring a map). The only people I saw this weekend were on this trail. I didn't actually do the final push to the summit (I had better views in store where I was headed).

Hex Mountain to Howson Peak (Sasse Mountain Trail, FS #1340): 2.5 miles, +1350', -800', 1 hour 5 mins

Burned forest, no water. This section of my route was the most fire-affected. The trail comes in an out of existence. It's easy to find when it traverses a slope because the cut is still visible, but on flatter stretches it tends to disappear under fallen trees, branches, and fresh vegetation.

This is the only section of my route where the actual trail clearly deviated from the GPS route I had pulled from CalTopo/OpenStreetMap. Those maps still use the old hand-drawn Forest Service route. Based on my GPS track, I lost the trail (took different paths northbound and southbound) at least 3 times. Where my two tracks align, I think I had found the actual trail. But the terrain was easy to navigate and the undergrowth was soft, so losing the trail probably didn't slow me down at all. The only somewhat tricky navigation was just west of Howson Peak, where the trail cuts below Point 5159, and you can decide whether you want to save some elevation and distance by traversing lower, or save some side-hill walking by traversing higher. The Strava Global Heatmap indicates some kind of a consensus is forming on where the trail actually is. The next time I do this, I'll pull a track from there.

Howson Peak to Jolly Mountain Trail (Sasse Mountain Trail, FS #1340): 4.7 miles, +1850', -1700', 2 hours

This section of the trail was easy enough to follow, although there was significant snow coverage. The snow isn't problematic (I didn't have traction), but be careful of cornices. The views from this stretch were OK, but the summit of Sasse Mountain is forested (although with a nice fire-pit-turned-planter-box), so the views from the ridge to the south (toward Howson Peak) or north (on Point 5610) were better.

You can follow roads for about a mile of this stretch where NF-4315 reaches the ridge. There's a large pile of snow at the end of the road at 5500' which is currently feeding a small pool in the road. This was the first significant water of the day (ignoring small muddy trickles from other piles of snow). I don't love drinking off of motorized vehicle tracks (the trail above this is also open to dirt bikes), but I don't like passing water when I have empty bottles. So I filled up, and I'm glad I did, because my plan of dropping down the Jolly Mountain Trail to Salmon La Sac Creek was foiled by snow. So I kept going along the ridge along the Jolly Mtn Tr. I noticed tracks in the snow at this point. I assume they were from folks who had come up FR 4315 to summit Jolly Mtn, because I didn't see any tracks on the snow-covered Jolly Mtn Tr, nor did it seem it would be possible to navigate that slope without crampons and an ice axe. I expect it will be at least three weeks until that trail is melted out.

There are a few options for dropping off the ridge to get water along this stretch (Little Salmon La Sac Trail, or NF-4315 either way).

Jolly Mountain Trail to the saddle northwest of Pt 5891 (Jolly Mountain Trail, FS #1307, and Jolly Creek Trail, #1355): 2.75 miles, +1360', -1390', 1 hour 45 minutes

My route dramatically changes character here. The north face of Jolly Mtn is mostly covered in snow, as is much of the trail above 5800'. The trail wraps around a small hill north of Jolly Mtn (elevation ~6100'), with the Jolly Creek/Mountain junction on the saddle south of the hill. Snow patches on the south face of this hill melted and fed a stream running along the trail grade. I normally repair waterbars when I see this much water running on a trail, but this was the closest thing to a stream I had seen all day and I figured others may be in a similar situation of wanting water. So I ditched my remaining road-pond water and filled up from this stream.

The forest north of Jolly Mountain did not burn in 2017, and the ground changes from ashy-dusty-brownish to the reddish-whitish-gray gravel I'm used to on Teanaway ridges. Leaving the Jolly Mountain Trail, the Jolly Creek Trail was in surprisingly good shape (compared to the Sasse Ridge Trail), but 100 yards in is a snow patch on a 40 degree slope above a cliff. This was the crux of my adventure. On Saturday, I crossed the snow at a thin patch above the trail then traversed the rest of the slope to the ridge. On Sunday, I opted to stick to the ridge, which quickly turned rather scrambly. I don't know what was better; both were a little sketchy and it was a trade-off between trusting gravel not to be marbles and trusting rock not to be choss. But in a week or two when the snow melts, the trail will be just lovely!

Continuing on, I had hoped to be able to drop down to Jolly Creek and camp in the basin, but the top of the trail was snowy. It would have been possible to veer around the snow to the north before catching the trail lower down, but the ridgeline around the basin toward Pt 5891 looked to have an inviting trail and be mostly snow-free. So I followed the intermittent boot path over Skookum Peak then down to the saddle toward Pt 5891 (the ridge to The Louvre getting rather cliffy). I didn't feel a need to add more sketchy scrambling to my weekend by heading up The Louvre.

Near the saddle northwest of Pt 5891 (Skookum Basin Trail, FS #1393.2): 1.1 miles, +660', -660', 1 hour

From the saddle, I went most of the way up Pt 5891 before it got scrambly and the sun began to set. I went back to the saddle where the Skookum Basin Trail should have been, but as far as I can tell (and as far as the Strava heatmap is concerned), it no longer exists. To the west, a myriad of game trails hide any semblance of a human-made grade. To the east, plenty of snow and an avalanche further down the basin would likely make trying following the trail pointless. (The avalanche looks to be from this season based on the flattened-but-still-green trees; it came off the south face of the southeast ridge of The Louvre, running from maybe 5600' to 4400', appearing to cross the creek.)

So I dropped 500' down to the west into Jolly Creek Basin along game trails until I could access water, filled up bottles for the night, and went back to the saddle to camp. There are nice spots for at least 2 tents up there, and it would make for a lovely backpacking destination, the easiest access being the 4-mile ridge walk from NF-4315 (once the lower gate opens). I may be back for larch season! If you want to avoid scrambling down a valley, it'd be a good idea to just bring all your water with you.

Notes

I got one mosquito bite and was bothered by a few flies, but the ridge is generally free from critters. The sun was the biggest pest.

I cleared many dozens of branches and a few trees from the trail, but the burn area still needs a lot of work (including some grading) before I'd call it a "good" trail. But it's still a great route!

See the CalTopo map link below for my GPS track (in the Runs folder -> "Hex to Skookum 19-20JUN21"). I retraced my steps on Sunday, slightly improving my route in spots (doing a better job finding the actual trail). So if you want to steal my GPS track, I'd suggest taking the southbound half.

Overall: 28.3 miles round-trip, 11400' gain, 23.5 hours car-to-car (including stops), 7 liters of water, 1 sunset, 1 sunrise.

I added several photo spheres to Google Maps along the ridge. Look on Google Maps, turn on the Street View layer, and find the blue circles. I added a link below to a photo sphere taken near my campsite just before sunset.

Tried to hike in to Jolly Mtn via the Salmon La Sac trailhead. Followed the excellent directions from the WTA website. Parked in the “day use only” parking immediately North of the Cayuse Horse Camp and walked in through the horse camp. Followed the road that goes past the campground host campsite ( RV parked there) and followed the road up to the clearly marked trailhead sign. It’s a multiuse trail,  that includes motorcycles. The trail is covered with large  loose rocks, with a rut in places, due to motorcycle tires, very doable, but quite rough. Some early blooming wildflowers on the way in. About 2 3/4 miles in I ran into snow which soon became continuous, and up to three feet deep. Ended up using GPS to stay on the trail. The bridge over Salmon La Sac creek was covered with snow at one end. The snow covered slopes on the other side of the bridge were steeper then I felt comfortable doing without an ice axe and crampons/microspikes so I bailed:( coming bak in a few weeks. 

After our April 9 attempt, we had to try again. We took a small group of Mountaineers on what we billed as an intermediate snowshoe, but probably should have been designated a winter scramble.

We took our previous descent route up - the steep old snowmobile track - now with snow bridges and undercut snow. We used snowshoes about 200ft up from the cutoff and never busted out crampons or microspikes. We used ice axes in places - one side hill traverse and the fin to the summit, but mostly poles.

Once we did the first 1500ft on the snowmobile track, we crossed the road and continued straight and a bit to the right up over a domed hill/burn area to reach a ridge and another old roadbed at 5200ft.

Turning left, we followed that old roadbed on the ridge, where we'd stopped last time due to cornices and an avalanche slope.

Eventually we cut across to climbers' right to reach yet another ridge (yay!) at about 5400ft.

That ridgeline was heavily corniced with big falls, so we cut across - again to climbers' right, up and around and then down and then up onto the final (mercifully flat) ridgeline at 6000ft toward the mountain.

We followed some fresh snowmobile tracks (we could hear the snowmobiles, but never saw them) up to the summit block and then hiked up a freaky-looking but pretty chill fin to the top, where we interrupted a serious lady bug orgy (a million ladybugs mating) in the rock berm on the summit.

The snow was slippery on the way down. We were able to glissade a couple hundred feet. Those who took off their snowshoes had a few waist-deep postholes.

Totals were 10.2mi and 4435ft of gain, but on snowshoes off trail, this proved much harder than we'd expected. It took about 9hrs. We only saw 2 other humans all day, a car camping couple at the TH when we started out.

I hiked up to Yellow Hill and then along the ridge over Elbow Peak to Jolly Mountain, then came back along the Middle Fork Teanaway River trail.  The ridge was great, but the valley was a bit of an adventure.

The gate is open, and despite potholes past Indian Camp, most cars should be able to reach the start of the multi-use Yellow Hill road/trail.  Blowdown will discourage ATV use until it is cleared.  Snow patches started showing up around 4000' and soon became continuous, but made for easy booting straight up Yellow Hill.  I was mostly on snow for the rest of the ridge, but never needed snowshoes.

I finally reached Jolly at 4:30pm and after descending to the north a bit decided to drop straight down to the east and return along the Middle Fork Teanaway, not considering what all the unbridged crossings would entail.  In a few places I found logs across the raging river, and in others I gingerly worked across cliff faces or went up and around them.  Even when I managed to follow the trail the going was often tedious due to blowdown, debris, and undercut snow patches.  Just west of Teanaway Butte, well after sunset, I finally gave up on trying to follow the trail, and headed straight up some very steep and loose terrain to avoid a cliffy section, then contoured over to an old road bed and followed roads back to my starting point.  I should have just stayed on Road 230 all the way to the MF Teanaway Road, but took a shortcut trail shown on the map that ended up being pretty much obliterated.  It worked out though.

I recommend the ridge right now for anyone comfortable with steep snow travel, but not the valley - wait several more months for the river to become fordable.  And the MF Teanaway trail is going to need a bit of cleanup work.

We started at the wrong TH (Cayuse Horse camp) and went back down the road for about a mile to park in the giant snowmobile parking lot.

We then took the Winter road, with some steep off-trail snowshoe travel to cut switchbacks. Due to late start, we got up to a ridge at 5000ft, then traversed across a relatively flat baby tree field into a burn area and up to a more prominent ridge at 5400 - for a 3000ft day.

At the point where we stopped on the ridge there were cornices on hiker's right and avalanche slope on the left. Beyond that, we could see the ridge up to 5600.

We went down partly the way we came, including some glissades, and then found an old snowmobile track to snowshoe the rest of the way down.

Gorgeous views and fun day all in all.