Chewuch River Trail — Thursday, Apr. 30, 2015

North Cascades > Pasayten

I took a day trip to see the condition of the Chewuch Trail. The first discovery was that Kay Cr has a couple of 8" deep channels over the road about 100 yards before the trailhead. No problem for a truck or SUV. A compact car was parked just before the stream. I hiked in to the Basin Cr junction to survey the trail conditions and then did some minor trail maintenance on the way out. Even so, there are still about 60 trees down on this 6.4 mile section of trail. A hiker can get through using the normal methods (step over, sit-n-spin, crawl under, cross country around...). There is also a short section of trail about 4 miles in, where a creek is running down the trail for about 50 yards. It is too early for the flowers and most other spring vegetation, and there is no snow. This provides a rather stark landscape as the area is slowly recovering from the Thirtymile Fire of 2001. There are lots of 8-10ft pines in the burn areas, some early deciduous leaves, and a few forested pockets that survived the fire. This green is in contrast to the brown, black, and gray that dominates the view. The Chewuch Falls are running full, as are most of the creeks. The Chewuch River ford for the Fire Cr trail looks pretty dicey at this time. The stepping stones to cross Basin Cr are under water, but a few logs slightly upstream provide a crossing without a ford.