Today was sort of a hike to nowhere, beginning on the Bessemer road. My intention was to hike Green Mountain, so I began by taking the CCC Blowout Creek trail from the junction a mile in. 

Got about a half mile into it and it became clear that the creeks had a bit much flow to them, so I turned back. Just enough to get feet wet. Not sure what to do, I meandered about the mountain bike trail for a minute, then headed back to Bessemer road. I followed this over to CCC Upper trail and spied the trail crews recent saw work (thank you). More high flow water there, so back to Bessemer road again. 

Then I decided to head up Bessemer until I hit snow and turn back. Snow patches start at 3200ft and the trail is mostly covered from 3600ft on. I ended up having lunch at the turn at 3850ft, where there is a great view of the Middlefork Valley. From there it looked completely covered the rest of the way to the summit. It was somewhat easy to walk on in boots with poles, no traction needed. 

Quiet day, saw 1 hiker and a dog on Blowout Creek, 2 trail runners and 3 hikers on Bessemer road return trip. Good amount of salmonberry around. 

RT 12m/3059ft

Hiked this the first time with two dogs in tow. The first mile or so is up an old logging road before you reach the true trailhead. You immediately encounter a creek that is raging in the spring time with a log bridge crossing. The log was definitely narrow and shaky but doable. After that there are several more creek crossings that require differing levels of difficulty. We ended up turning around after like 2.2 miles when we encountered a creek crossing that seemed too difficult and the dogs seemed like they were mostly spent. The Forrest was mostly alder with some evergreen trees and some absolutely fantastic old stumps from logging. I can only imagine what they looked like before. Overall it was a fun excursion if you are looking for a place where no one else will be and you can have to yourself, but no destination or views to speak of it that’s what you are looking for.

We ran/hiked the full ccc trail starting at Teneriffe and ending at the Middle Fork trailhead. 

As they lock the teneriffe lot we parked at the school bus turnaround. From the teneriffe trail you can take small social trails towards the terminus of Mt si road/start of ccc, I enjoy this area so this is what we did. You can also just walk the road. We continued up the road, checking the map at a few intersections, and through the gate onto the ccc road. It is marked with a discover pass sign. 

After running up a nearly mile long hill the terrain flattens out. It's pleasant running for the most part until the junction at green mtn/Sitka spruce trail. The trail narrows, and stream crossings are frequent and sometimes a little interesting to navigate. There are lots of interesting moist mossy rock slabs along the trail. 

There is a footlog on the crossing next to Bessemer road. Follow the road for a bit (signed) and watch carefully because the trail is basically missing for a few feet. The mangled sign is here, and luckily it's not too hard to cross the gouged earth into the forest again. Between here and the junction with Middle Fork road there are a lot of blowdown to slow you down. People have been working on them, thank you! There are still many. The stream crossings continue here. 

The final 3 ish miles are lovely single track with a nice new bridge at one stream crossing. Quite pretty here! 

Our route was 14.9 miles and 1700 elevation gain 

Got up to Absolute Last Promontory on Green Mountain today. My route was one of the longer ways. 

I started up the Bessemer road at 8:30am, turning left at the junction with Blowout Creek. This footbridge is in great shape but can get icy. Followed that all the way across the CCC Plateau to Brawling Creek. There is one tiny water crossing with an impressive flat rock. This is about when it started to rain. Pretty light, but was enough to have me glad I brought rain gear just in case. 

The water crossings are ok right now, I used poles for both Wise and Brawling Creeks. Wise is actually a series of crossings. After Brawling, the CCC has many blowdowns all the way to the junction with its Lower Section. Most are negotiable, but there was one I had to cut through with my pocket saw. 

The early turnoff for Green (shortcut) from CCC is totally trashed. Many, many downed trees. As an alternate, I made my way to the Lower Section junction and through the rusty forest service gate which is not much farther. 

Past the I-beams and trail construction storage area, the Green Mountain trail is dense with blowdowns. Once I reached the junction with the shortcut, it cleared up. I also noticed a trail closure sign here. Unless miswritten, it's about a year old so I pressed on. 

Reaching around 2000ft on the Green Mountain trail I had to cut through another large blowdown, this time with multiple larger trees. The weather evolved from raining to lightly snowing. Given the sunny forecast, I decided to stay the course to ALP. 

Past this point it's mostly clear, I still had to climb over a few more downed trees that required a little thought first. The promontories are completely melted out. Very little snow left on the trail. Lots of great mossy rock seats to observe the Middlefork Valley. The weather let up for my lunch there thankfully, and for much of the rest of the day. 

Out and back by 3:45pm. Saw 5 others all day. 1 mountain biker on CCC (probably wasn't stoked), along with 4 casual hikers headed up Bessemer. 

RT 12.05m/2275ft