Salt Creek — Sunday, Jun. 4, 2023

tl;dr: nice forest hike, no mountain views, no snow, no people, don't bother going past the high point.

EDIT: poking around after I submitted my trip report, I somehow found the option to create a WTA page for this trail (neat!). I found some more USFS info and wrote a brief description that tries to remove the subjectivity and time-dependence of my trip report. I hope establishing this hike on WTA helps someone!

We found this hike via the Green Trails Mount Adams map (367S). We took a spontaneous camping trip along NF 23 and saw that there was still a fair amount of snow above ~4500' (we tried accessing several mapped campgrounds near Babyshoe Pass and hit snow on the roads, though it looked like some extra-high clearance vehicles had gone through). I had a few nearby hikes saved in my WTA backpack (offline) but they all went well above the apparent snowline, which we were neither prepared for nor interested in for this spur-of-the-moment trip. So, we referred to our handy paper map and found Salt Creek! According to the map, it starts at 3200' and after 3.8 miles it ends at a viewpoint at about 3700' - sounds great!

The trailhead is a short drive down a turnoff (gravel) from NF 23 (mostly paved). The last few hundred feet to the trailhead were a bit rough. The parking situation was spaces to pull in off the road, maybe room for 5-ish cars; we saw no cars or people the entire time we were there. The only indication of a trailhead is a wooden information sign. There was a box for self-issue wilderness permits, but it was empty.

The trail starts off through open forest, on a wide dirt path with a very gentle uphill grade. Eventually (maybe a mile in) it narrows and follows the side of a hill, and there is more underbrush (though never encroaching on the trail). Somewhere along here the trees open up a bit to a view of a pond and meadow. At about 2 miles, the trail notably steepens to climb up the ridge. We briefly glimpsed the shoulder of Mount Adams through the trees, but we pushed onward to find the mapped viewpoint. We hit the high point of the trail (not the ridge crest, the trail just goes back down), and shortly thereafter encountered a fresh tree down along the trail, and another across the trail. These were moderately annoying but not impassable. We got to the bottom of the ridge where the trail flattened out and... ended. It went into a gigantic puddle with a large tree down across it (see photo). We walked across the tree and explored around the edges, and saw a couple of small flags, but nothing that looked like a trail. Our Green Trails map suggested we had about another quarter mile, and our GPS trail map (from Hiking Project) only showed another 30-40 feet. After half an hour of searching and snacking, we called it the end of the trail and headed back up the hill. (once we were back in service, I was able to find one trip report from 2012 for this trail, which noted an "end of trail" sign in about the same area, but it seems the sign is gone now)

All in all, we were happy to get out for the weekend and explore a new-to-us area. This was a lovely forest hike (and it smelled amazing!) and we had it entirely to ourselves. We didn't get the mountain views that our map indicated, but hey, there were great views on the drive. Anyone else coming out here, I recommend that you stop once you reach the trail high point on the shoulder of the ridge.

One interesting note, in the first few miles we noticed several freshly cut logs (up to the high point of the trail), and the trail itself was in great condition and not overgrown. Kind of surprising in hindsight, given that it doesn't seem very used and doesn't really have "special features" to attract many people there. Thank you to whoever is doing this maintenance work!