Chewuch River Trail — Sunday, Jun. 26, 2022

Hiked Chewuch Trail Jun 26-28 2022. One sentence description: How many ways can you go over, under, and around fallen logs while swatting mosquitoes? You won't get up to the Boundary Trail from the Chewuch side without a lot of extra effort beyond normal hiking, as well as some extra risk of injury. But there are many positives including wildflowers, butterflies, and a big lesson in wildfire ecology.

We had intended to make a loop involving the Boundary Trail between Cathedral Peak area and Tungsten Mine. We met a solo hiker coming out who had gone to the mine via the Tungsten Trail, he said there was snow up high and 2000 trees down on the way. I thought he must be exaggerating but after experiencing the conditions myself I think his estimate was probably accurate. The downed trees begin after Chewuch Falls, about 3 miles from the trailhead. The treefall is manageable but exhausting until the 12 mile point on the Chewuch Trail at the junction with trail 505 which leads to Four Point Lake. In these first 12 miles there is little chance of losing the trail. Just after that junction at 12 miles with the trail to Four Point Lake the Chewuch trail disappears in a burn scar with fallen trees everywhere. Another trip report for a different trail perfectly described this setting as a game of pick-up-sticks. We attempted to make our way through the mess, but we turned back after maybe a quarter mile in an hour. We lost the trail fairly early, might have found it on the return, or we may have been following a game trail. The game trail was marginally better but still too difficult for us. It did not appear that anyone else had tried to pass through, very few broken sticks and limbs that would indicate a way through. The risk of injury trying to cross is very high, so many chances to impale yourself on a broken limb or have a limb break unexpectedly causing a fall. We could have kept going but without knowing when the conditions would improve we felt it would be unwise to continue. We met two other experienced backpackers who also turned back after a similar attempt.

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After returning home, I checked Google Maps of the area along the Chewuch Trail from where we turned back to Remmel Lake. The images are from 2022. They must have been taken in mid-late spring because all the side channels of the Chewuch River are filled with water. Even zoomed out, the Chewuch Trail is clearly visible in the 2+ miles between the junction with the Four Point Lake trail and the crossing of Cathedral Creek, including in the massive blowdown that we started through. The blowdown is not visible in the images so it seems likely it happened in the last few months.

The fords of Horseshoe and Tungsten Creeks were surprisingly difficult but still manageable. The water is running really high currently (pun intended), mornings are lowest water.

The other hikers we met who had tried to cross the deadfall then tried to go to Four Point Lake. They said there were logs over the Chewuch but the water was too high for them to attempt. The Chewuch is running very high and some seasonal side channels still have water.

We did not check any of the side trails off the Chewuch Trail but just from what we could see at the junctions, trails 510A and 360 look to be in bad shape.

The mosquitoes were bad but took a typical break during the heat of the day in the mid-afternoon.