Ingalls Creek, Beverly Turnpike, County Line, Falls Creek & Hardscrabble Creek — Friday, Sep. 13, 2013

Central Cascades > Blewett Pass

I've always been intrigued by the sub title in the Spring/Manning Alpine Lakes guide for the County Line Trail, "Forgotten Trail Of The Wenatchee Mountains". So I planned a five day trip incorporating it into a loop involving Ingalls Creek, anticipating a challenging search in the wilderness for remnants of an abandoned trail. Unfortunately, the trip was shortened to 3 days because of time constraints, but was still a great experience. We began by ascending Ingalls Creek #1215. The first 5.5 miles to the Falls Creek junction are in great condition and the constant proximity of the creek made for a pleasant walk. After that, we passed through an area that had recently burned. The trail was quite brushy, but never difficult to follow. Now the creek was mostly out of sight. We never saw the junction for the Cascade Creek Trail and there was a sign for the Hardscrabble Creek Trail, but no visible path. After a long hot day, we made it to the Beverly Turnpike Trail #1391 and just past the junction found a delightful, but rather small campsite at the edge of a large grassy meadow with great views. The site was rather cramped for 3 small tents, but it was a delightful place to spend the night. The next day we ascended the Beverly Turnpike Trail over the saddle to the junction with the Fourth Creek Trail #1218. We followed that to the junction with the Hardscrabble Creek Trail and turned right. This next section provided us with spectacular views of Mt Stuart. The trail is in great shape and we passed a great campsite in a meadow. After the steep climb over the saddle, we found the junction with the County Line Trail #1226, well marked with a couple of huge cairns. The "forgotten" trail turned out not to be so forgotten after all. It is definitely being used by both people and horses. There was almost always visible tread and there we're lots of cairns. There we're a few places where we had to look around to see which way the trail was headed, but we never actually lost the trail. The ascent of the ridge that separates Hardscrabble from Cascade Creek was incredibly steep. We followed footprints up the soft sandy slope. It looked like there may once have been switchbacks in the forest to our left, but it didn't appear that anyone was going that way anymore. We we're exhausted when we finally reached the top, but we could see our goal, Navaho Pass, below us. We passed a small stream on the way down, so we we're able to camp right on the pass knowing that water was nearby. Our last day, we continued on the County Line Trail, on the side of Navaho Peak. Again, following the trail was never an issue. When we reached the junction with the Falls Creek Trail #1216, we thought we would be descending on a "maintained" trail and that the most challenging part of the trip was now behind us. No way!!! Within a few minutes we lost the trail and descended several hundred feet before finding it again. The we came to a section where the trail was buried by a large avalanche. The IPhone with the Green Tails App saved us a lot of time. There was lots of blowdown and we lost the trail every time it entered a meadow. But the crown jewel of our difficulties came at around 4400'. After descending treacherous, washed out switchbacks on a steep slope, we crossed a creek, climbed a short hill and stood atop a 20 foot vertical drop looking down into a deep gully carved by the raging waters of Falls Creek. There was a cairn, but we at first couldn't accept that we would somehow have to go down at this point. So we spent some time following the creek in both directions, looking for a better place to descend. But this was definitely the best spot. We lowered our packs and we're able to climb down without any problems by stepping onto a root and then a large rock below it. I'm not sure that we would have been able to climb up this slope if we had been coming from the opposite direction. We finally reached Ingalls Creek, where we took a much needed lunch break before hiking out to the trailhead.