Beverly Turnpike, Fourth Creek & County Line — Sunday, Jul. 12, 2009

Snoqualmie Region > Salmon La Sac/Teanaway

I went on a Cascadian backpack outing Fri – Sun to the arm just west of Volcanic Neck & Tooth Saddle. Once the Beverly Creek Trail broke out of the trees the hillsides were covered with Northern Desert Buckwheat & Scarlet Gilia. The trail was in fine shape. We then took the Fourth Creek Trail up to the junction with the County Line Trail and then along this trail to our campsite. The County Line Trail to this point was generally easy to follow, though a little boggy in places. Our campsite was next to a long outcropping of beautiful orange serpentine with spectacular views to the north across the Ingalls Creek valley to the Stuart Range; to the west to Ingalls, Bill’s, & Iron Peaks; and, right above us, Bean Peak & Volcanic Neck. Once in the higher country there was lots of Wild Alyssum, Spreading Phlox, Martindale’s & Wenatchee Mtn Lomatium, Ivsia, and, in the wetter spots, Jeffrey’s Shooting Star. Most spectacular, however, was one of my favorite wildflowers, the beautiful serpentine endemic, the Wenatchee Mtn Spring Beauty (Claytonia megarhiza, var. nivalis), growing in almost every little nook & cranny in the serpentine. It took considerable self-control not to photograph every composition I found. We hadn’t been there too long, however, before we were discovered by the mosquitoes. It took liberal amounts of bug juice & mosquito net hats to keep them at bay. On Saturday we day-hiked the County Line Trail east toward Navaho Pass. Once past the two forks of Hardscrabble Creek the trail was faint at times, though cairns generally marked the way. There were also lots of blow-downs, both old & new. Once we reached the saddle just before Navaho Pass, Ethan & I decided that we had gone far enough. I took a group shot with the Stuarts in the background and then the others headed off to Navaho Peak, which they reached in about an hour. The skies were clear & the views magnificent, though it was quite warm. When we arrived back in camp later that afternoon clouds were building & there was a party of two in one of the other campsites a little farther out on the arm. These two and a day-hiker were the only others we saw the entire time. We woke on Sunday to overcast and a cool breeze, a welcome relief from Saturday’s heat. After breakfast some of the party headed up towards Bean Peak, but it was so cold & miserable at Tooth Saddle that they turned around and came back to camp. The breeze was only intermittent by the time they returned, and the bugs were as thick as ever, so we packed up and headed out. We stopped for lunch on the open slopes above Beverly Creek and arrived back at the cars about 2:30, the end of a very nice outing. A final note: when we arrived at the trailhead on Fri there were some Forest Service folks there checking out the drainage ditches that were mentioned in earlier reports (we scraped bottom of one of them). We were told that the plan is to modify them enough so that the road is passable to passenger cars while still providing the necessary drainage.