Road Conditions: Free of snow except a couple small patches that are melting fast. Low clearance vehicles at trailhead.
Trail Conditions: Snow still over a foot deep at about 4,000,' patchy snow starting about a mile in at around 3,200,' and easy to navigate blow downs along the initial climb.
Headed up the Kachess Ridge trail at about 10am with my partner and two adventure pups. Only a couple cars at the trailhead with most people taking Easton Ridge toward Domerie.
The initial climb is pretty relentless, but a good training hike for tackling tough peaks later in the season. We encountered some blow downs along this section, moving a smaller one off trail, but even the bigger ones were easy to pass. Everywhere the snow has melted you'll see Glacier Lilys glowing like little rays of sunshine.
Patchy snow started around 3,200', just below the intersection with the "unsanctioned" trail that heads left to intersect the Kachess Beacon Trail from the south side. I do not recommend taking this unmaintained trail, not only because the Forest Service has officially closed it, but because it is narrow and exposed and cuts across terrain that is suffering from erosion due to foot traffic and thus becoming even more unstable. How do I know? Because we lost the trail briefly in the snow and ended up following it before a map check got us back on track.
Staying straight and curving slightly right, the Kachess Ridge trail continues past this intersection through the still snow covered forest, climbing a bit more gently now toward the ridge. The snow here is still deep enough for the occasional knee deep post hole. We used microspikes most of the way with success, but snow shoes may have been better once the trail became less steep. Route finding is necessary to find/stay on trail through this section (we used Gaia).
We ended up turning around well before the Kachess Beacon spur tail; all the snow and initial route finding was enough of an early season adventure for us, especially with the dogs periodically stopping to dig or roll in the snow.
If you are looking for this kind of early season romp, you'll likely have the trail to yourself, even on a Saturday, as we did. Happy hiking y'all!
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