Tuesday morning, with forecast still calling for an unsettled week of
sprinkles, especially in the Mts, with minimum POPs on Friday and
Monday, two, then three consecutive fronts passing through, I headed
from CdA to Sandpoint, with alternating periods of deep overcast then
sun breaking through thick billowy clouds on the ridges. Killed some
time walking around the city beach/marina, and struggled to find the
Amtrak station. I say struggled, because I saw signs to the station,
pointing toward the city beach, which is why I "started" there. The
road to the beach park under-passed the highway and the tracks, I saw
an Amtrak sign pointing left at the underpass, at a signed bike path,
squeezed between the highway overpass and the tracks, but the first
road left was after the tracks into a hotel parking lot. So I did the
beach and marina walk, photographed a train going by from the beach,
drove through the hotel parking lot looking for the station, saw it
behind a chain-link fence, saw cars parked there at the station, asked
a hotel parking attendant how to get there, he pointed to the bike
path. Can cars use that path? Yes. Oh-OK. Photographed the station,
another freight and then a passenger train passed by in opposite
directions while I was there. Busy track.
Drove on to Priest Lake, taking the east side route first, two ICT
TH's N & E on that side, failing to take some turns to stay on the
main road, consequently got some bonus photo-ops of the Sherwood Beach
Marina, also with nice backdrops of billowy clouds with rain-aprons.
Also stopped for some nice boggy meadow views, and surprisingly large
and numerous slash heaps from recent logging activity right near new
fancy housing at the shore. I passed by the road to Hunt Lake, one of
my two destination ICT TH's, with a sign warning that logging was in
process. Split into three pieces on that shore, seemingly getting
crowded out by the new housing and logging and marinas, is Priest Lake
State Park. The Park Visitor Center is at the Indian Creek Unit, I got
there shortly after it closed, picked up some random info they had
left in a porch area where one could reserve campsites, available
within those three units. IEach unit is just a few acres in size, it
seems, about a quarter-mile along the road. Beyond that Park unit the
up to that point paved road turned to gravel, I drove on expecting to
stop at the third park unit, Lions Head, from where I thought the
northbound ICT TH started (the ICT between Hunt Lake and Lions Head
was "road walk" for thru-hikers, that I was driving,) but I somehow
missed the turn - lots of large signs for private resorts with
prominent "No Trespassing No Lake Access" signs. The road began
climbing uphill, still wide, good quality engineered road surface, I
passed a few loaded logging trucks without slowing, finally was
rewarded with views of peaks of a ridge of the Selkirk Mt Range to the
east lit by the setting sun, made several stops for photos, finally
reaching a saddle just below Caribou Hill, with a small jeep trail
that I turned onto and parked the car for the night, to a grand
180degree view of the entire still setting-sun-lit ridge framed by
foreground trees and shrubs.
Wednesday morning to a mostly sunny sky, I walked the half-mile
double-track trail up the Caribou hill, rewarded by glistening mossy
colorfully morning-sunlit vegetation, and at the top, a view down on
Upper Priest Lake. Back at the car, from the map I realized I could
drive on down the NW side of the ridge I was on and end up at the
north TH of the section of ICT I would be taking past Upper Priest
Lake, then be in position to also hike the final 8 miles of ICT to
Upper Priest Lake Falls, a half-mile from the Canada border. But I
wasn't sure if the current good condition of the road would continue
down the other side, and also, I first wanted to do the Hunt Lake
section, on this east side, and also, get a second chance to ask for
info from the ranger at the state park visitor center. So I drove
back to the visitor center, getting there just a few minutes after it
opened, and just as the ranger was heading out. I asked the lady at
the desk what she could tell me about the ICT in this area, was the
Hunt Lake TH closed due to logging activity? she asked the ranger, who
confirmed to me that Hunt lake was accessible, as a short but
"difficult" hike, across a boulder field. He said he hadn't heard of
anyone hiking beyond the lake recently, the section marked on the map
as "no trail, bushwhack". Then the ranger was called away by a phone
call, then later asked the secretary to call the original appointment
he was trying to meet when I popped in. Sounds like he's stretched
thin.
That simplified my decisionmaking, I would just go to the lake and
back, easy half-day hike, I figured, might do the ICT section along
Upper Priest Lk in the afternoon. The road there was more typical of
the other ICT TH access roads I've seen, progressively rougher as the
road gets steeper. There was a sequence of a half dozen consecutive
water bars, each one the zombaru's bumpers just scraped past, a last
one around a corner close to where I thought the TH parking would be,
the road just happened to have enough road to turn around at, so I
took that as a hint, turned around and left the car there, walking the
rest of the way to the TH, except that was a bit longer than I'd
estimated, by about a mile, I guess all those water bars slowed me
down more than I'd figured. Finally got to a large turn around at the
end of the road, just after a damaged gate for a side road that I
guessed headed to Hunt Peak, about teo miles south of the lake. On
the map it was about a half-mile of trail to the lake. But wow, by
"boulder field" I pictured a tallis slope of maybe large cobbles. I
was looking across a half-mile of car and truck-sized boulders, on a
30 to 60degree sloped field. Each would take a bit of attention from
my usual looking-around for photo-ops, and the hiking poles I had with
me were a hindrance here. Looked for maybe a series of rock cairns to
guide my way. Very occasionally, there were, and occasionally, colored
ribbons tied to the few stray shrubs sticking out hre and there. But
these often led off in conflicting directions, some heading down into
thicker vegetation below the main field. As I neared the far end of
the field, vegetation began regaining frequency, and a web of trails
would develop and disappear. A thousand alternate ICT routes, across
that field. The map showed a smoothly curved trail across that field,
beginning in an area currently blocked by treefall. OK, I've amped
that challenge up enough. It just took a bit longer than expected to
get to the lake.
The "lake" I saw at the far end was a small pond, I vaguely recall
noticing that on the map. Photo-ops aplenty there anyhow, gathered
then up for a while, to varying light as the billowy clouds switched
off and on the sun. Several college-age men caught up to me, carrying
fishing gear, they greeted me: how are you, nice day. I joked: "all
that work, this is what I see?" They said Oh, that's just a pond
below the lake. They continued on to the main lake, I soon followed,
as they began setting up to fish from a large boulder on the south
side of the lake. The fish were biting, small 10" size or so, pulled
in soon after they cast. I passed them by a bit higher up, then found
a comfortable boulder to sit and have water and snack. The lake was in
an elongated cirque, also bounded by boulder-field on the south side,
more thickly vegetated on the north (south-facing) side. Made sense.
There was an obvious gap in the ridge on the far eastern side, and it
actually did look feasible to find a route up that. It was getting
cooler and windier and darker, rain clouds looming above, and sure
enough a few minutes later started raining. I had my new FrogTogs with
me, so put them on and started heading back, promptly ripped my
frog-pants on a log I climbed over. Oh no, a flat Frog Tog, and no
patch kit along. (Just a 4" tear near the inseam, no big deal,
really. Might try duck-taping it, quack, croak, groan.) By the time
I got back to the lower end of the lake, the sun was out again, so I
packed my togs.
Decided to try a lower route back, followed the exit stream of the
larger lake to the smaller pond, pushed through some bushes to get
around the pond, started pushing through bushes taller than I around a
little knob between the pond's outlet stream and the boulder field.
Got soaking wet from the brief-rain-dampened vegetation. Pushed my way
back up to the boulder field, and happily balanced my way back across
that, dry by the time I found myself a bit too high up on the field,
with the starting trail rerouted down around the tree fall area at the
start. Followed a trail at the edge of the tree-fall, made by previous
hikers having navigated up too high. A mile further back to my
prematurely turned-around car, there by 5:30pm. Another hour's drive
got me to a hairpin turn with a broad turnout area with a nice view
across Priest Lake to the setting sun and changing clouds. Decided to
overnight right there. The nearly full moon came up to the east, took
some snaps (though with my wide-angle lens, not much to see, could
have changed lenses, but was half asleep already.)
Library closing again, finish the thread tomorrow probably, ducking the weather.
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