This is just a reminder to self of what to cover:
ICT ClarkFk switchbacks2RidgetopRain AutoInsPmt-WrongTurn2BonnersFe
3dBackpackLoopGrouseMtBEagleMt
noICT2PurdyMt?ICTreturnOvrKell
So I Left the Sandpoint Library after setting Google Maps to direct me
to SpringCreekRd in Clark Fork. What I didn't realize was there are
east and west SpringCrRds, the West SprCrRd being in the town of Hope,
next town west. Now I remember the ranger in Sandpoint mentioning
something about Hope... as I flew by the intersection that I thought
might be the turn, across from a signedTurn to
SamOwenStatePark-HopePoint on the peninsula to my right. But Google
said nothing and I trusted it and I drove on, ending up yet another
time on E SprCrRd. Coincidentally, that road was now in the process of
being paved (last time it was a dirt road.) There was a big ridge in
the median of the road, with the southbound lane having 6" more
asphalt, creating a barrier preventing me from turning around, until
the new pavement ended, at a house with a turnout-driveway where I
stopped to look at my map. The homeowner came out and asked if I was
lost, I laughed. He guessed I was looking for the ICT, complained
about the change in ownership and lost access - said even as a
resident he could no longer take that trail from his house. He
confirmed where I should have turned off the main road, at the Hope
Fire Station, first right onto Hope Peninsula Rd, then briefly right
onto Denton Rd, then left up W Spring Road.
That road was also private properties on either side, all the way up
the hill, then logging property, with lots of signs saying "NO
HUNTING without permission", then the signs stopped, then the road
ended at a newly constructed tight loop surrounded by several
prominent signs saying "KEEP OUT under surveillance", but also a small
parking area and a sign saying "trail 120". It was almost dark.
Parked there, crawled in back to sleep, humming Woody's song:
""As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.""
Friday morning I wasted no time getting ready to hike. It was mostly
cloudy, but still some patches of sun. The first part of the trail was
new, new bridges, up several switchbacks then a long traverse and then
the old trail, more switchbacks. The trail became overgrown with
underbrush. The whole hillside seemed to have been logged some years
ago, young trees and multiple layers of shrubs, lots of the big leaved
thimbleberries to push through. Hard to find the trail at times. Good
filtered views of Lake Pend Oreille to the southwest, the Valley to
the east of the lake around Clark Fork, and of Lightning Creek
directly below to my east, which looked like a glacial stream, lots of
gravel, many stranded channels, reminded me of my Alaska trip. The
slopes of the ridges around the lake and flat valleys curved down to
nearly vertical at the water of valley floor, typical of the glacially
formed valleys I saw in Jasper Provincial Park, or on Waterton Lakes
NP on the Canadian side of Glacier NP. Near the top of the ridge
there was a branching trail to the right to Bee Top Mt, and just a bit
further on the left trail I came to a cliff, looking down into yet
another cirque-shaped valley, seemed to me, though only a stream in
this one, but from the map I could see that the far side of the
cirque-ridge was another serrating dividing ridge between the
Porcupine Lake valley, probably also cirque-shaped. But finding that
out would have to wait, it was threatening rain, I wanted to get back.
Too late, got caught. Put on the light-weight poncho, but my pants and
shoes got soaked from the overgrown vegetation, and I was surprised my
poncho survived all the flogging by all those branches.
Back at the car, changed my socks & shoes, left my wet pants on to dry
with the car heater. I wanted to get to some cell phone signal ASAP to
call AAA to renew my expired car insurance, before they left for the
weekend. Drove to the town of Poderay which was basically a shopping
center, just about 3:45 Pacific Time. Called my AAA agent in Boise,
got a msg with option to call CSAA, did so and got renewed, but Ouch,
I wasn't expecting that much of an increase, I will doublecheck with
my agent if that's correct, and will probably now look for
alternatives to AAA. I asked the CSAA guy why they couldn't have
emailed me in addition to mailing to my PO Box, about my expired
coverage, and he said I needed to get set up online. Moved myself to
the McDonalds in the shopping center & tried to go through the
registration rigamarole, but it wouldn't validate, maybe because of
insecure McDonalds wifi, donno, gave up, frustrated, drove on,
cogitating over a bunch of things.
Suddenly found my self in Bonners Ferry. Was intending to use the
Sandpoint library. Was wondering why all the scenery looked different
despite having driven that route to Sandpoint before. I had gotten
turned around in the parking lot, not accounting for my move from
where I had parked to call AAA and where I ended up at McDonalds. Oh
well, did some shopping at Safeway, and found the Boundary County
Library, right near the Kootenai River, open til 8pm pacific time.
Great, processed my picts, began this email. I was using a table with
power in the library basement in front of "Idaho's First Fab Lab". A
bunch of jr high aged kids were using the equipment. But they left at
7pm and I was told the basement would be closing in 15 minutes, so I
left a bit early, good because I still needed daylight to find some
where to overnight. Hoped to find the trailhead where the ICT crossed
I95 about half way between Bonners Ferry and Sandpoint, around Naples.
I jumped the gun a bit, twice, the 2nd time on Twenty Mile Rd, which
did take me past a logged area into forest land.
Saturday morning, looking at the map, there was potential access from
where I was at to the ICT, via a jeep along Boulder Creek. I followed
the roads towards there, but the road going down towards the creek
became uncomfortably muddy, decided not to push on, to try my original
plan, a road along Trail Creek just across from Naples. That led to a
trailhead with about a half dozen horse trailers, a half dozen ladies
just leaving. There was an info board that included a trail
"narrative" about a potential loop which seemed very photogenic and I
could "enlarge" that loop into what would be a two or three night
backpack, although only half of these days would be on the ICT; in
fact, about half of the rest would likely be non-trail
ridge-scrambling. The suggested loop counterclockwise passed "almost
over" Grouse Peak and Bald Eagle Peak, (not on the ICT) and returned
via Kelly Pass (which as on the ICT.) But my forest map also showed a
trail going southeast from Bald Eagle Peak "almost-following" a ridge
to just north of Calder Mt on the ICT. (when I say "almost..." I mean
the trail hangs below the ridge-top, that presumably being too rocky
for a "packTrail" which I think is the standard criterion for these
trails, to accommodate horses. After all, it's horses that enable
trail maintenance in wilderness areas without motorized equipment
permitted.) None of my potehr maps showed a trail across this ridge.
I asled anotehr hiking party if they knew about that trail, the guy
said there was an intermittent trail across that ridge, but it was
doable to just follow the ridge line. Once I completed the ridge I
also wanted to contunue south along the ICT to hit Calder Mt and Purdy
Mt, which I would do as an out&back day-hike leaving my pack behind.
Then there was a trail that followed Boulder Creek to a junction which
I might have reached first from 20Mile Road had I taken that
trailhead. West from that junction would return me to the car via
Kelly Pass.
OK, library closing again, Ill sent thisd now, have two days of good
weatehr then weatehr supposed to get iffy, so will be back in the
library friday probably.
emailed a few minutes later...
...and now to continue (still determined to finish this thread today -
doing so now from a JackInTheBox.)
I remember that I had heard some gunshots in the distance the day
before, while I was trying to tree-climb-bushwhack through those
impenetrable alders. Now I wondered whether they were from those
riders, whether the boxes on that 4th horse were loaded with their
catch.
Up FT155 to Kelly Pass, still a recently maintained trail, but steeper
and longer than I expected, and also again slightly rerouted further
up the slope, and I stopped once to check my maps looking for a
possible side trail I might have mis-taken. A dozen horses appeared
in the distance, and the lead rider began talking to me as I stepped
off-trail to the low side, and she thanked me, and got small-talk from
the other riders, like "did I get any good pictures?" "I hope so."
"You have more energy than me." "Not right now I don't." Two dogs
trailed the riders. Later, the trail passed through a small seep - I
could see from the maps that the original trail passed lower down
along that seepy slope, probably explains the reroute. Finally got
to the Pass, and a junction with a connector trail to BaldEagleMt,
FT53. The "narrative" of the loop at the trailhead at the car where I
started called for continuing on this trail rather than my longer
route over the ridge from BaldEagle to CalderMt. This trail was a deep
canyon eroded/trampled into the ground, compared to the trail I had
been on. Detailed signs here at Kelly Pass gave trail names &
numbers, for example: "<- -="" 53="" bald="" eagle="" grouse="" mtn="" no.="" tr.="">" is
the deeply eroded trl that comprises most of the described loop,
including the "unmapped" segment from Kelly Pass westward to my car.
"^ Orville - Heath Tr. No. 54" is the one that I took (sort-of,
ingnoring/not finding it to begin with) from Bald Eagle Mt along the
ridge toward Calder Mt, then following it north to its jct with FT51,
the "Boulder Meadow Tr." And the "Pend Oreille Divide Tr. No. 67"
is the trail I was trying to find at the Calder Mt junction, which
goes south from there across Purdy Mt, Mt Willard, Mt Pend Oreille, to
Lunch Peak. Unfortunately the forest maps just have the trail
numbers, while many of the trail signs I've come across have only
trail names, although often also only a number, still better than just
"trail", or just a sign post with no sign, or, just nothing.
Similarly, when I'm driving, road signs often are just names, not the
road numbers on the forest maps, though again better than nothing.
So anyway, taking what I now know as FT53 from Kelly Pass west towards
my car, the next junction was at a road camp site corresponding to a
switchback turn on FR404, which is a tangle of old logging roads.
Taking the westward direction on this road led through a freshly
logged area, oppressively hot that afternoon, then a short wooded
"buffer" to my starting trailhead. What leaves me curious is why the
two parties that I saw leaving that trailhead when I first arrived 3
days ago, who seemed to be "locals" familiar with the area, had chosen
to begin in the clockwise direction, hitting the logged area in the
uphill direction, early in the afternoon. I'm glad I chose to do that
loop counterclockwise.
When aI got to the trailhead, the gate into the logged area, that was
closed on Friday when I arrived, was now open. There was a sign there
saying it would be closed daily without notice. As I sat in my car
preparing a sandwich from stuff in my still cool cooler, someone drove
by, stopped to ask me how the huckleberry picking was, I said petty
good at the higher elevations. He complained about the mess the
loggers were making, seems like he did some complaining to the local
authorities, showed me a blueberry picking basket which seemed to have
a comb-like fringe which I guess is used to swing the basket through
the blueberry/huckleberry branches, plucking off the berries,
hopefully leaving most of the leaves and stems attached to the shrub.
Has to be better than my clumsy attempts to pluck individual berries
off the branch, half the time clumsily pushing the leaf/branch away,
missing the berry. It seems to be very much an eye-hand coordination,
manually. I've seen bears do the grazing with their teeth, passing
the whole branch through their jaw. The berry picker in his car said
he'd been caught on the wrong side of the locked gate several times.
Kind of a strange character, seemed to me.
I had in mind finding the next ICT trailhead westward on my way down
the road. (The ICT turned west at the Boulder Creek junction - just
about where the hunter/rider spill happened, goes west from the
Cabinet Mt Range the south end of which was at Clark Fork, down across
a broad valley that "saddles" at Lake McArthur (which was a dam, now
removed, being "restored" into a wetland, drained to the north by a
minor stream, Deep Creek.) The valley is also a major transportation
corridor, with highway 95 and several parallel strands of railroad,
with a historical station at Shiloh, and a current station at Naples
which has a major logging operation. The ICT crosses west back up
into the Selway Mts, which run N-S from Sandpoint into Canada along
Priest Lake to the west. So before my 3day hike I had taken Trail
Creek Road west into the Cabinets from Hwy 90 at Naples, it curves
south then turns east up to my 3day trailhead. The ICT follows this
road as it goes eaast-west, leaving it at a tangle of logging roads on
the small ridge that Trial Creek curves around. So on my return drive
I explored this logging road tangle, trying to find a hint of the ICT
trail which on the official ICT pdf map seems to cut across several
of the switchbacks on the logging roads, then continues west down to
the historical Shiloh RR station. Found no hint of trail on the upper
ridge, but lots of recent logging going on. Pretty much satisfied my
desire to hike this section. Thought I still should explore from the
west end, from Shiloh. Poked around in Naples for a bit, got some ice
and gas at the quaint local general store, Found the presumed
trailhead (a gated logging road" at Shiloh just about at sunset,
stayed there overnight.
Getting tired, though JackInTheBox still open til 10, will continue tomorrow.
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