Hiked the War Creek trail to Lake Juanita and Boulder Butte with an attempt at Camels Hump via Toni Basin Trail. Road to TH is washed out, but walkable. Trail overgrown, but in good condition.
2 Days, 1 Night | 26 miles
Camped at Lake Juanita
War Creek TH --> Toni Basin "Trail" (attempted) --> War Creek Trail --> Lake Juanita --> Boulder Butte --> War Creek TH
Road:
The gate to the trailhead is open (and removed from the gate hinges). Beyond the gate, the road to the trailhead remains washed out ~0.9mi from the trailhead with space for maybe 5 cars to park along the side. Otherwise, the road is overgrown and mostly one-car wide in most sections past the gate. The washouts are easy to cross on foot. The pit toilet at the official trailhead parking lot is fairly clean.
Trail conditions:
The BCRT crew that cleared the blowdowns last week did incredible work. There was not a single blowdown on trail from the trailhead to War Creek Pass. The trail tread is good and easy to follow, but there is a lot of overgrowth along the entire trail from fireweed to bushes to small trees. Our legs got quite cut up and scratched wearing shorts for the trail. As others have said, there is almost no shade along the first 8 or so miles of the trail.
Trail from Lake Juanita to Boulder Butte is well-marked and in great condition. There are 360deg views from Boulder Butte. We saw just two people on trail in our two days on trail.
The cabin is clean and in good condition with space for several people to sleep. It also has a stove.
Two campsites right next to each other at Lake Juanita with view from the ridge looking south. There is also a larger stock campsite on the west side of the lake. Lake Juanita privy is clean.
Water:
The trail is generally close to water until the cabin at 5.25 miles. There is good water access right next to the cabin that is flowing well. There were two other shallow streams between the cabin and Lake Juanita, but that was it. Lake Juanita still has plenty of water, but it is silty and was slow to filter. There are numerous animals tracks in the mud all around the lake, so maybe not the cleanest water source. The lake is shallow and the partially froze overnight.
Toni Basin Trail:
Our goal was to add on Camels Hump and then traverse the ridge to Camels Butte and then onto War Creek Pass by following Peggy Goldman's guide. Sadly, this was before the 2018 fire burned this area. It was a 4.5hr detour through steep terrain that is mostly burned areas with lots of bushwhacking and blowdowns. Trail no longer exists, but we did cross the remnants once on our bushwhack up from War Creek trail to the unnamed pond in Toni Basin. A better choice would be to follow the routes that others have down from Williams Lake and Williams Butte.
We left War Creek trail at the old junction with Toni Basin Trail and went straight uphill towards he unnamed pond in Toni Basin. We started heading northwest into the basin from unnamed pond, but quickly decided against it after we entered young pine forest covered in crisscrossing blowdowns. We took the south side of the ridge instead that starts directly west of unnamed pond. This was easier, but still quite slow. Continued to follow the ridge as it moved uphill and northwest towards Point 7681 which is northeast of Camels Hump. After encountering a steep/semi-cliff band, we descended to 6800ft and ultimately called off our attempt due to sunlight hours remaining and the limited water we had left. From this basin to the east of Camels Hump we descend along the fall line and creek back to War Creek trail about 0.75mi further along the trail from Toni Basin trail junction.
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