Hey all, I'm not going to write a super long trip report because I already put hours and hours into crew summaries with pictures and the story of our trip. If you want to see that, just contact me via comments.
This was a Gray Wolf Crew with support from Backcountry Horsemen, Peninsula and Olympic Chapters. Team effort as always! There were 4 of us, all "C" rated sawyers. We were two saw teams of 2 for the entire trip.
We had volunteer stock support to as far as 5 Mile Camp, which was able to be accessed by stock due to the work we did last May with those huge trees (3 of us on this project were the ones who cut out those large trees, and the packer was the same one who provided us with stock support for that project in May).
Then we schlepped (double lap) tools and camp to our first camp and the beginning of our work, which was entirely in the ONP.
Long story short, despite moving camp - lots of miles - heavy tools / gas / oil - and the ABSOLUTELY INSANE HEAT, we managed to do this over our 8-day trip:
- cleared about 170 projects from the ONP boundary to the Lacrosse Pass junction. The trees from the boundary to Ten Mile camp have been down only since we last cleared this section in 2021. Unfortunately, due to the 2009 fire, another 80-100 fall every single year. However, most of the trees from Ten Mile Camp to Lacrosse Pass junction hadn't been cleared since approximately 2015ish. And some of them had been there way way longer than that.
- cleared the bottom 1/2 mile of the Lacrosse Pass junction. For this we were running out of time (so our standards were dropping), but I knew from scouting that the bottom 1/2 mile was the worst and there was one troublesome tree 1/2 mile up in particular that I wanted us to make our end goal. The bottom part of the trail is now quite easy to hike aside from the brush and the swampy trail (not bad now but gets really super bad in the wet season) for which we didn't have time left nor brushing or tread tools.
The Duckabush is still being overwhelmed in areas by the forest trying to recover from the fire. There are long stretches where we had brushed with former crews in the not-too-distant past. Those areas are still noticeably better. The places where we hadn't brushed are getting super bad. But having the trees gone makes a huge difference!
Warning: just in our time on that trail (8 days), 3 snags fell. Two of them were on the trail (one of them fell not far from us while we slept at Ten Mile Camp on the last night after already having delivered the tools back to 5 Mile. The other fell in the ONF where chainsaws are not allowed anyway). There are snags all over Ten Mile Camp and I see hikers putting their tents right in line with where they would fall. So just as a PSA ... SNAGS DRY OUT, COLLAPSE AND FALL IN AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER, MOST ESPECIALLY DURING EXCEPTIONALLY DRY SUMMERS LIKE THIS ONE.
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