North Fork Tieton to Tieton Pass, Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) Section H - Bridge of the Gods to White Pass — Friday, Jul. 15, 2011

South Cascades > Goat Rocks

North Fork Tieton trail 1118 to McCall basin, 7/15-7/17. Trail 1118 was well maintained and log free all the way to the PCT. There were a few snow patches the last 0.5 mile but nothing that would make you lose the trail. Unfortunately a bridge about 2 miles from the trail head is washed out so cars can't get over it, fine to walk over. For some reason the parks service has closed the road with cement baracades almost 4 miles from the trail head leaving about 2 miles of perfect road unusable by cars so you must walk over that section for seemingly no reason leaving a 4 mile road walk to get to the trail head. The PCT south of the junction with trail 1118 is about 50% snow covered with a decent amount of trail locating still required to keep on your way. It took us about an hour (with full packs) to travel the less than 1 mile to Lutz "Lake", the small pond just before McCall basin. South of Lutz lake the PCT was VERY hard to follow and we gave up on the trail and fended for ourselvs into McCall basin. This area is likely 2 weeks away from being fairly passable. We weren't able to get to the high elevation area south of McCall basin but I would imagine that will be under lots of snow well into August. It's a beautiful area and a great time but logistically this trail will create problems until the snow melts and the bridge is repaired. P.S. Lots of bugs below about 4000ft. Bugs not very noticable in the snow zone.