Kelley Creek via Martin Creek Trailhead, Kelley Creek — Saturday, Aug. 17, 2024

Took off from the Martin Creek TH down the unnamed (by USFS standards) trail that follows Martin Creek towards its confluence with Kelley Creek. I was hoping to find evidence of the "Horseshoe Tunnel" to do a bit of research for a possible Hiking Guide entry, but was disappointed to find that there is very little no evidence of the tunnel left. You can kinda maybe almost see where a tunnel would have come in and out of the hillside, but erosion has done its job in reclaiming the hills.

Given that I drove all the way down here and we're in the THICK of the Hike-a-Thon, I decided to see if my maps were lying and I could in fact connect this trail over to the Kelley Creek trail and then hike back down the road to the TH .... I did not look into if this was possible, I did not look into the conditions of the Kelley Creek trail .... this was a mistake.

The trail along Martin Creek up to Kelley Creek was in decent condition. There were a few places where trees have come down which required a bit of bending and stretching to get around them, but nothing unreasonable. And while I thought that things were feeling brushy here, I had no idea what was ahead. Overall though, it was pretty smooth sailing up to the point where the trail turns and starts to climb up the hill alongside Kelley Creek.

From here, I was able to use the Alltrails map (Gaia doesn't show the trail as existing at all) to find the end of the trail and where you're able to cross Kelley Creek on a downed log or rocks to continue traveling NE back towards the road. Once you're across the creek, things change. The trail here has obviously not seen maintenance in a long while with brush crowding you on the trail significantly. There are a number of large and small trees down, including a rather scary snag over the old road grade consisting of 3 veeeeeery squeeky alders that were making scary "I want to fall and crush you" noises even without wind.

Despite things being pretty nasty and overgrown, it wasn't hard at all to stay on the trail and with a fair bit of cursing, I made it back to the old Kelley Creek TH and started looping back down to the car.

I must say, that despite all my complaining, I didn't see a single other person and was treated to soooooo many of the largest and most delicious blueberries and black huckleberries.

Will I ever come back to hike this loop again? Absolutely not. Would I recommend that you hike this loop? No, not really. Do I think that this might be a bit more exciting and fun to explore on snowshoes in the winter? Maybe... Did I eat one billion delicious berries and still not even make a dent in the number that were out there? Oh boyo, yes I did. Was this trip report helpful in guiding your future hike choices? I have no idea.