I'm trying to get back up to the Stateline to resume hiking since the
forecast up there calls for sunny through Thursday, then more
thunderstorm chances. So, need to get this recap since Friday Ag 2
done and out of the way now. It's been a while, so am trying to use
my photos to recollect my wanderings.
On Frid Aug 2, after leaving the restaurant in Superior where I was
using the internet for my last "blog-email", I did grocery shopping,
got gas, and headed up to the next road pass (Dry Creek Saddle FR221
in case you're following along on a map) over the Stateline to
overnight for a next day hike back to Binocular Peak where I turned
around last Thursday morning. It was getting dark and I somehow
missed the saddle (topographically not very obvious) and so took some
sunset photos from about two miles down the road going down the other
side into the StJoe River watershed (FR1222 on my map) before
backtracking, again missing the saddle and finding a turnout to
overnight. At that point I realized I had forgotten to fill my 6gal
water jug before I left town, but inventoried enough for the next
day's hike. The next section along the ridge would be a 50mile drive
along probably very rough road along the ridge, with no expectation of
water sources on the ridge, so would probably need to make an extra
drive back down to Superior.
Saturday morning I did manage to find a hiking trail sign and the
ridge road a quarter mile further south on the Saddle, and a gated
road to park my car, and got hiking southeast. That trail turned out
quite interesting, with lots of off-trail vistas from steep
cliff-edges dropping down into bowls some with lakes others just
meadows. Also still plenty of wildflowers in bloom, though many were
going to seed. As usual, I tried photographing the bumblebees that
seemed "accessible", for that other side project. Also took several
40-60minute breaks just enjoying the scene. Made it to Binocular peak
to a view of the lake that indicated my planned turn around point
(skipping about a half mile of downhill into a meadowy slope above
that lake. I had turned around before descending into that same meadow
from the other side the previous morning (thunderstorm threat being
the reason for that early turnaround.) Since I'm not trying to cover
"every inch" of this trail (unlike my intent on my PCT hike) I just
deemed it "skippable" without missing any significant photo-ops. More
leisurely 40minute breaks on the way back, made it back to the car
with plenty of daylight left for a drive back to Superior to fetch
water at the Ranger Station there and back up to overnight.
Sunday I did the drive along the ridgeline to the Hiawatha tunnel near
Lookout Pass. As expected, it was a fairly rough road in places but
not as bad as some of the others I've been on. I took my time, trying
to stop at every significant patch of bloom to try to photograph
bumblebees, and a few side-hikes to try to get glimpses of lakes shown
on the map. The latter actually yielded some frustrating duds, with
the trees in the way - not that I want to complain about trees! Much
of the area I've been hiking through these past few weeks have NOT
been ravaged by recent wildfires! There was the occasional patch
(that may have been controlled burns, - especially I suspect one patch
adjacent to the only paved road that reached up to the ridge from the
St Joe River valley, but turned to gravel at the ridgeline down into
the Montana side.) I've also encountered a few logged patches, and
some patches of dead trees that look like disease infestation.
The end of this section of drivable ridgeline is at St Paul Pass, a
road junction with FR506 which connects the two ends of Hiawatha
Tunnel (a railroad tunnel converted into a bike trail.) I thought I
might overnight here to hike half of the next section of trail west to
Bullion Pass (the next road crossing along the ridge.) But that
gravel road had very hight traffic that Saturday afternoon. So I
decided I'd go directly to Bullion Pass, which had no such attraction
so should be lower traffic I figured. This involved a drive down to
hwy 50, a frontage rd along 50 then back up the ridge. This road up to
Bullion Pass turned out to be wickedly steep and rough, but I made it,
and was assured a traffic-free overnight at the pass. I figured the
next morning I'd first do the longer hike west from there to Stevens
Peak, then the next day do the half-day hike back to St Paul Pass,
then have the afternoon to drive on to the next trailhead, presumably
below Stevens Peak near Mullan west of Lookout Pass.
I managed to sleep a bit late into Monday morning, but decided I'd
stick to my plan. That hike turned out to be more strenuous than
expected, especially with some side-excursions venturing out to
off-trail ridge-ends to try to view lakes far below, and a few too
many leisurely breaks, and a very confusing set of extra roads not
shown on my maps (the Coeur D' Alene Forest Service map, and my pdf
printouts of the ICT maps from Id Park & Rec.) I was at a knob SE of
the St Regis Lakes to the northwest, and the ICT there would drop
about 600ft west to a saddle south of the lakes. But there ware three
roads on that knob, one ATV trl heading steeply NE, another ATV trl
steeply NW, a third atvtrl steeply S. On the maps there was a trail
going south to the "Wonderful Mine" Road branching off from Bullion
Creek Road SW of Bullion Pass, no trail north, and the ICT west. I
tried all three trls several times for progressively longer distances
down, none of them seemed to turn west. I then identified the nearly
overgrown trl before the knob corresponding to the trl on the map down
to Wonderful Mine. By then I'd run out of time to get back to the car
before dark, and was hot and tired, so I gave up, pending more
research online.
Tuesday I did the section back to Hiawatha, but also initially zoned
out and continued South on Lucky Swede Gulch for about two miles
before realizing I'd missed a turn, backtracked and did finally take a
fairly pleasant walk down to the Hiawatha road, but that stretched
well into the afternoon before I was back at the car. Decided to try
driving down the other side of Bullion Pass, into the St Joe
Watershed, which turned out to be less steep but just as rough,
keeping an eye out for the Wonderfull Mine Road, in case that was a
feasible way to get back up to the knob with a shorter hike. That road
seemed drivable, but I moved on because there were two other possible
alternative ways of getting to the Stevens Peak area shown on the map,
one another mine road directly to the peak, another from Moon Pass
would be a longer hike along the ridge back to Stevens Peak. The ICT
would head down the north side of the ridge west of Stevens Peak. At
the bottom of Bullion Cr Rd from Bullion Pass was a bridge across
Bullion Cr and since it was hot, I stopped there for a bath before
heading on up the N Fk St Joe River (FR456) toward Moon Pass. Somehow
missed the mine road directly south of Stevens Peak, but the Moon Pass
trailhead was obvious. It was not yet sunset and hot at the pass, so
I decided to drive on into the town of Wallace, getting there near
dusk. Lots of pretty houses colorfully painted coming into town, and
the whole town looked like a concentrated showcase of restored
relocated structures. Found the grocery store, got food and bottled
water (I was running low - and asked where I might fill up a 6gal jug
- they suggested at the laundry) found the laundry still open and with
a power plug for my laptop so got my CF cards unloaded while doing
laundry, and did fill the 6gal jug (but have been continuing to buy
water rather than using that - don't trust it.) Found the library and
used its hot-spot for a while, then headed on to Mullan a few miles up
hwy 50 to find the trailhead below Steven's Peak. Amazingly, I found
it in the dark, luckily taking the right choice at several road
branches in Mullan and managing not to pop a tire on the rough steep
road to the TH.
Wednesday morning I still didn't feel ready for another strenuous hike
up the mountain, so I decided to find the next trailhead north from
east of Mullan, near Shoshone Park and/or the Hale Fish Hatchery (not
clear from maps where the TH starts.) After quite a few wrong turns I
did manage to identify it, skirting some kind of mine tailings pond
just above the fish hatchery. That trail goes up to Burke Summit, on
the State Line, SH4 out of Wallace. Then I went to look for another
alternative approach up to Stevens Peak beginning from the cemetery
along Boulder Creek in Mullan. That alternative actually needs a bit
of explanation. The pdf ICT map showed the ICT trail coming down from
Stevens Peak along a ridge passing West Willow Peak then down the east
slope of the ridge to Willow Creek which was the trailhead I was at
that morning. But the trailhead signs were just to the lower lakes,
Stevens and Long lakes. The Forest Service map showed trails to the
lakes but no trail up the ridge to West Willow Peak. But it did show
a trail (FT128) from Boulder Creek which is the next valley west that
has the same "shape" (switchbacks going up east slope of ridge to
ridge spine then south to main Stateline Ridge west of Stevens Peak.)
Given the proven unreliability of the pdf ICT map, I questioned the
existence of it's trail up Willow Creek. So, just in case I chose to
follow the Forest Service trail, I wanted to "ground-truth the
location of its trailhead. So yeah, there is an "atv trl" there
(though not signed.)
But still it was hot and I didn't feel up to hiking, so I went back to
Wallace to use the library. Got there an hour before it opened, oops,
it's Pacific Time here. Visited the Mine Museum, which was very
interesting. One display in particular, a "layercake" of stretched
transparent mylar each layer about an inch apart, each layer showing
mine tunnels in the area, a 3-dimensional labyrinth revealing the
vertical seams of lead-silver ore that were found. The tunnels go down
about a mile, many miles of tunnels. There's also a mine tour
available (to the local mine "in" Wallace. and I'm still intending to
take it some time before I leave this area. At the library I unloaded
my CF cards, got my tracklog transferred and photos geotagged, and
started browsing for info on mining in the area, but the internet
there was very slow or kept disconnecting and library closing in an
hour so I decided I'd make the trip to Coeur d' Alene library which
stayed open until 8pm, tried to find info on climbing Stevens Peak
from the Mullan area (limited success, muddied the issue further in my
mind,) drove all the way back to the Stevens Lake trailhead in Mullen
that night.
But Thursday morning of course I was still unsure about whether/how to
climb Stevens Peak, so I did some more exploratory driving, first a
road from the trailhead that seemed it might traverse the West Willow
Peak ridge to the alternate trailhead at Boulder Creek (It yielded
some nice views down on the town of Mullan with it's mine buildings -
the Lucky Friday mine, whose miners have been on strike for past
couple years - lots of signs along the road - meanwhile, I read that
management is refitting the mine with new technology:
https://www.krem.com/article/n
) That road then petered out after a narrow stretch along a steep
slope, into dense woodland and some impassable downed trees, so I had
to back up about a quarter-mile before I could turn the car around.
I then decided to take FR4 from Wallace through Burke to find the ICT
at Cooper Pass. What a visual shock the volume and condition of mine
tailings still completely unmitigated with decaying timber berms.
Many of the buildings have been removed but the gigantic mill and
separator/concentrator structure is still there and hundred-foot-tall
mine tailings on all the slopes down to the stream. The rocks in the
stream are discolored rusty orange. There are signs telling visitors
to clean themselves and their cars of dust when they leave the area.
I read that there's a rectangular area around Smelterville (further
down hwy50 toward Cd'A that is the "superfund site", and homes and
schools in that area have been mitigated by removing/replacing about 6
inches of soil, and there's a protocol (result of lawsuit with money
placed in a trust fund disbursed a little at a time each year) with
repositories for waste material (apparently all low lying areas within
that rectangle) whenever digging below these surface caps is done, but
it seems to me this is just a symbolic gesture compared to what would
be needed to really mitigate this overwhelming problem.
Above the Mil, things began to look a bit more normal. The road
paralleled a cleared swath for power lines to the pass. I parked at
the pass and took a trail that I at first assumed was the ICT but it
just went a short way to Upper Glidden Lake, but there was also a
branch trail just before the lake that led up to the ridge above the
lake, skirting the west slope of Burke Peak, with views of the lake to
the west, and views down toward Lookout Pass to the southeast. I went
just a bit further down the southeast slope, concluding it was the
trail up from the fish hatchery east of Mullan. I could skip that
descent followed by a climb back up. On the way back I took a swim in
the lake. Reviewing my maps it seems the ICT skirts the East side of
Burk Summit before joining with the trail I had taken, to continue
down the hill to the fish hatchery. I found that trail "hidden" at
the edge of the power line clearing, going down the east slope from
Cooper Pass. There was also a trail across the road that I took, even
though the maps showed the ICT going north beginning from a point
about a mile west down from the pass. I assumed this trail at the
pass might connect to that lower trail, and it did traverse the slope
above the road for a while and intersected a steep "atv-trl" going
straight up the hill, passing a small mine tailing hillock and then
circling up the tailing pile to a mine tunnel (that was barricaded
with steel bars.) Possibly it was a vent for a deeper mine tunnel?
But no trail led beyond that point. I took the steep atv-trail
downhill for a bit, but decided I was too far above the road, and it
was beginning to drizzle a bit, so I traversed the walking trail back
to the car and drove to the lower trailhead. Took it uphill and it
came to what I now recognized on the map was Glidden Pas, a 4way
junction the east branch of which I guessed might be the "atv trl" up
to the mine tunnel, the northbound branch was another trail going down
Glidden Gulch, and the westbound trail being the ICT which I took up
to a rocky peak and then along a ridge north. When it started going
steeply down I turned around. It was drizzling lightly and a wind was
blowing stronger and it seemed darker than the time of day would
expect, though it was late afternoon - thunderstorm brewing?
Back at the car I drove back to Wallace, did some more grocery
shopping - bought more water, used the library wifi from the car for a
while, by then it was getting dark and I drove up towards Moon Pass
(the direction from where I had originally entered town) and found a
spot not too far out of town to overnight with a steady rain all
night.
Still raining Friday morning, I headed to Coer d' Alene, to use the
library. It was just partly cloudy here. The library is right by
McEuen Park and Tubbs Hill, a small forested knob jutting partly into
the lake, with free parking right there by the park and knob. Since I
got there well before the library opened, I explored Tubbs Hill. The
library closed early on Friday so I decided to get new shoes at
Walmart. Two supercenters in the area, the first north of town didn't
have my size, went to the 2nd west on Post Falls, found the 9 1/2's I
wanted. Planned to overnight a short way southeast of town off of
Beauty Creek Rd along FR1595 that I hoped would be feasible, but
immediately after getting on hwy 50 in Post Falls there was a rest
area. Good enough. Been using that these last few days, heading
mornings to the free parking by the park with very clean bathrooms,
taking walks with my headphones catching up on KPFA news. Saturday
morning I walked towards the city beach (wanted to see if they might
have public showers there) and ran into the start of a triathelon.
Watched that til the library opened. Sunday morning I walked further
along the lake towards its outlet into Spokane River, around the
"Advanced Treatment Plant" there, photographing with my cell phone
some interesting sculptures among other sights along the way. This
morning took another walk around Tubbs Hill. In the library I've been
doing some photoprocessing, getting frustrated that my cell phone
photos that I've uploaded via Adobe Lightroom Mobile to my adobe
account in the cloud, won't sync over to the corresponding version of
lightroom on my pc (even though I've done that before...) and
reading up on some of pst and current silver mining practices
generally and in this area, and the superfund mitigation program.
Also found a neat idaho geology web site that I've been reading from
my cell phone evenings while at the rest area. Haven't really read as
much as I would have liked (due to the lightroom troubleshooting and
shorter library hours this weekend...) but oh well, maybe next time.
Tonight I still hope to make it back up to the Mullan area to tackle
Stevens Peak tomorrow morning, or maybe ease into resumed hiking by
first scouting the trailhead at the top of SH9 which follows the NFk
Coeur d' Alene river to Thompson Pass on the StateLine. The hike
south from there would meet up with where I turned around on my last
hike from Glidden Pass. That would be an easier hike I think than the
climb up to Stevens Peak, which I could postpone for later this week.
Well, now it's 6:30pm and I want to get out of town.
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