Was in the area, so I decided to see how far up the Huckleberry Creek trail I could get. Answer was to Prospector Creek, which was running faster, colder, and deeper than I wanted to deal with.
Got to the TH around 9AM. Had planned to stop at the vault toilet at the Skookum Flats TH on the way in but it had trashed. There was another car in the parking area when I got there, but they were just checking out Huckleberry Creek where it went under the bridge and left as I was taking a look at the landslide on FR 72 just past the Huckleberry Creek parking area. Only saw one other person on trail all day, a trail runner who also turned back at Prospector Creek.
The surrounding plant life is starting to encroach a bit onto sections of the trail. Some of it benign, but some with teeth (berry bushes, small devil’s club). Nothing too bad now, thankfully. There is a tangle of trees down about 0.8 miles from the TH. As you approach bear east (left) a bit and there’s a bit of a path worn in that gets you through with just a bit of ducking. Not far after this there’s another tree down about 30 inches in diameter that’s fallen across the entire trail. Sit and straddle gets you over this one. There were a few more blowdowns along the way, but none that posed as challenging to navigate.
Bridges on the trail are in serious need of attention. The new one WTA recently put in is great, but the rest are in various stages of decay. Have care when crossing.
There were a couple areas of mud, but nothing significant.
As mentioned above, when I got to Prospector’s Creek I decided to stop. I did wade in a little just to cool off a bit, and even just a third of the way across in the calmer section the water was 1-2 inches below my knees (I’m 5’-9”). I suspect it would have gotten a bit over my knees in the center where it was rougher. There was some snow on the other side of the creek (trail had been snow free to that point, with only two small piles off to the side of the trail just before the creek).
The spiders in this area are ridiculous. Even with the trail runner ahead of me, I was getting hit in the face with new web strands across the trail. Coming back down there were complete webs already back in place… find yourself a tall friend and have them hike in front of you on this one!
Bugs were swarming a bit in some places, but not too bad overall. Flowers along the trail included yellow violets, vanilla leaf, Oregon Grape, bunchberry, fringecup, bramble strawberry, baneberry, miners lettuce, trillium, a bit of salmon berry flowers hanging on and the beginnings of some coralroot.
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