8/5-8-16 Prematurely Crossed the Upper Priest Falls Finish Line after a rain-soaked overnight. Now in StitchUpTheGaps Mode

emailed to family Sep 16 2019 7:47 PM MtTime

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.

Sep4-9 Preempting Weather Pattern shift: ICTnorth: LunchPk-PurdyPk, ICTsouth: AuxorSaddle-PorcupineLkOverlook, RoundTop, then library to dodge dud? rain

eamile to family Sep 9 7:28 PM MtTime 

don't recall exactly how the forecasts evolved, but it now seemed I
had a short window of about two sunny days separated by one night of
rain, before a pattern change to a cold front and at least a week of
"instability", so I decided to again forego the half-day hike where I
was at, at Shiloh, and instead preempt the risk of having too-muddy
rugged mountain roads in the area I had skipped between just north of
Clark Fork to my last loop hike attempting to reach PurdyMt.

So I made the long drive south and east to Trellis Creek Road FR275
climbing up from Lake Pend Oreille to FR1091 to the Lunch Peak TH at
FT67, that trail you may recall from my last thread, having the name
"Pend Oreille Divide Trl", at least the sign makers at Kelly Pass
called it that.  Arriving at the LunchPkTH about noon after a grueling
ordeal for the Zomberoo on creek-bed-rocky FR1091, the trail was
signed simply "67".   Packed my backpack for a one-nighter, and
started off, from already spectacular near-360 views on the TH saddle
(just below the actual top of Lunch Saddle which has a rent-able
lookout tower - thought I might visit it on my return,) along a ridge
with generally good unobstructed views down both sides, and relatively
minor climbs down across wooded saddles between peaks, so I had the
energy to climb off-trail most of the encountered minor peaks with
grassy or small-brush or tallis-rock terrain.  Also climbed the
feature-peak, Mt Pend Oreille, rewarded with 360 views southwest to
the same-named lake, southeast to small Lake Darling, southeast to a
craggy range in Montana (possibly the Purcels, or the Cabinets though
I thought I was on that range - more research for later...) and north
to Mt Willard and neighboring peaks.  At the peak, for once I actually
found the round USGS survey marker and a US Coast & Geodetic Survey
Triangulation Station marker.  (I was seeing these quite often further
south, but then along most of the Mt-ID border they were missing,
unless possibly buried by large cairn-piles that were prevalent on
those peaks with missing markers.)  I scrambled down off-trail the
cliff-edge that seemed to sag down to the next saddle. (It seems to me
now that some of the cirque-shaped valleys formed at the base of the
hanging walls of the thrusted-up slabs of bedrock, tend to bend at
their sides, hence also the rounded shapes of the back-sides of those
thrusted slabs. It also seems to me that the minor comb-shaped ridges
I often see between adjacent cirque-valleys could be formed by if one
pictures the down-thrusted slab having fat fingers with torn gaps
between, which when pushing down through the opposing up-trusting
slab, leave un-trusted furrows behind, where the down-thrusting gaps
are. Not sure this conforms with proper geological thinking though.)

 The next peak along the ridge was Mt Willard, and I hoped to scale
that on my return.  The trail skirted the eastern slope of Mt Willard,
then descended down the seepy western slope of an unnamed peak before
arriving at a saddle just south of Purdy Pk.  This seepy slope had a
lot of tree-fall slowing down my progress, and an increasing amount of
overgrowing vegetation, and I was anticipating the trail might peter
out altogether before reaching Purdy, as seemed to be the case north
of Purdy.  I found a good campsite with promising morning sunlight
just before the saddle, left my backpack there and continued on with
just my waistpack and camera, with about 2 hrs of daylight left, to
scale Purdy Peak, a gently rounded spherical mound with grassy-
scrubby terrain.  (The main trail past Purdy again just skirted its
western slope.) I got back to my backpack with plenty of daylight left
to pitch tent and have a snack.

Thursday morning I backtracked to Willard Peak, starting an off-trail
upward traverse from its southeastern slope, leaving my backpack
prominently visible with a way-point taken somewhere on it's
south-southeastern flank, scaling the rest with my waistpack, taking
my obligatory pano's, and backtracking to my back without needing the
waypoint. Reached the trail again at the southern saddle and continued
back to the car.  The forecast still claimed there would be an evening
and night of rain, but It was still mid-afternoon and still very sunny
and warm, so I was considering trying to do the short two-mile climb
up TrestlePk from a trailhead a short quarter mike further up
TrestleCrRd from where I rejoined that road after making it down the
spur road from Lunch Pk. With this in mind, and because I was hearing
voices coming from the lookout tower on LunchPk, I decided to skip a
visit to the tower and instead get set up for a quick afternoon climb
up TrestlePk.  Drove down to there, sat there for a while not feeling
much energy, looked at my map and saw that it was a 1200ft climb up
those 2 miles, decided instead to look for a swimming hole down along
Trestle Creek, found a perfect spot at Huckleberry Canpground with no
one occupying the place, got in my dip, changed clothes and headed for
to the Sandpoint library for a few hours, returning to Trestle Creek
Road again in the evening to a camping area shortly after the left
turn from the junction with hwy200 along the lake from Sandpoint.  It
was still not raining, though the forecast remained unchanged.

When I woke up Friday morning it was still dry, but as I ate my
breakfast cereal, it began drizzling.  I decided to head for town for
another day in the library.  Stopped first at the Ponderay shopping
center to do laundry (and exchange a wrong-size "Frog Togs" rainsuit I
had bought the other day at Walmart) and I called my sister Ann in S
Carolina to chat about the hurricane.  By then the library would be
open.  Returned that evening to Trestle Creek Road, with still a
slight drizzle, passing by a few downed trees that were recently
chain-sawwed out of the road, and one actively being cut.  I continued
up the road to overnight at the Trestle Pk TH.  This was short of my
ideal destination, the saddle just below Round top Pk at the top of
AuxorRd FR489 up Auxor Basin, but I was concerned if the forecaster
was wrong about Saturday being sunny, I might get trapped at the top
of a rough road with a week of inclement weather ahead, so stayed safe
on the main road.  I might possibly still choose to make the two mile
1200ft steep climb from there up to Trestle Peak.

Saturday morning to my surprise was indeed sunny.  A few cars pulled
up to the turnaround area at the trailhead, parked two of the cars,
piled into the rest and drove on, presumably for a one-way hike across
Trestle Ridge, presumably from the Auxor Saddle.  That was encouraging
to me, so I also drove on eastward down Trestle Cr Rd into the
Lightning Creek watershed to Auxor Rd.  After the bridge across
Lightling Creek at the base of Auxor Rd there was a letter from the
USFS Sandpoint Ranger Station stapled to a tree, dated Sept 5.
Paraphrasing: Auxor Rd is being closed for public safety during road
reconstruction and improvement activities, to improve 8.5 miles of
road surface, drainage, widen and construct turnouts, remove
vegetation for visibility, clean ditches, culverts, catch basins, and
turnaround spots at the top of the road.  Auxor Rd was originally
built over 50 years ago for mining and timber access. Today,
recreationists regularly use this road to access the national forest
to camp, hunt, pick huckleberries, or simply take in the scenery.

The road otherwise seemed accessible from this point, admittedly not
very indicative of the entire stretch, but neither had I seen the
carpoolers returning, nor parked at this point.  So I continued on up
the road. The road did become rather fiercely abusive of the zombaroo,
yet another creek-bed-like road surface as bad as the others I've
encountered, possibly with fewer turnouts and steeper dropoffs.  At
the top, seemingly in the middle of the road, was parked a large truck
with tent mounted atop, wheels positioned on platforms to level the
entire contraption. And a 2nd Jeep next to that.  Reminded me of the
rafts hovering at the tip of the launching ramp on the Middle Fork
Salmon before being pushed down the ramp into the water.  Here, just
enough room was left to follow the road right, to the saddle, where
more ATV's and jeeps were parked, and tents pitched, occupying nearly
every possible turnout on the saddle.  Down the other side to the west
the road continued, from the map I understood as motorized trail FT444
coming directly up the ridge from Lk Pend Oreille, evidently a popular
route,  and another motorized trail FT2250 branched off to the
southeast.  There were also signs for nonmotorized trail FT120, the
ICT route, both south and northbound.

I found a nook to park my car, gathered my gear and headed south,
through a tent-site cluttered with ATV's.  I was immediately greeted
to views of a fog bank below, hiding Lk Pend Oreille and the entire
valley, very reminiscent of the California coast or bay on a foggy
morning.  the trail continued with good views of this fog bank along
the whole ridge south past Cougar Mt, watching the fog gradually
shrink and become patchy, revealing the lake and details on the valley
floor.  By the time I reached my destination overlooking Porcupine
Lake, where I had turned around on my hike up the switchbacks from
Clark Fork, the fog had mostly dissipated.  But my shoes were nearly
as soaked as on that earlier hike in the rain, from the wet
vegetation, still dripping in the shaded spots. But the sun was warm,
soon drying my pants legs at least.   On my return, I ventured
off-trail to scale Cougar Peak, starting from just below a saddle
between that peak and an unnamed peak just north of the ridge (again
the trail hung lower down along the southwest slope of the ridge.)
Thus scramble involved pushing through chest-high Huckleberry thickets
and dense BearGrass clumps, again soaking my pants and shoes, but
offering me close-up views of a (glacially smoothed?) rust-colored
rocky east slope/cliff of the unnamed peak north of Cougar Pk.
Arriving back at the car, I just continued north up RoundTopMt, which
appeared to be a pile of tallis from my south-west vantage point. I
found myself off trail by accident, so scrambled to the top of this
pile of rubble, finding a more vegetated continuation of the ridge to
the north, and the spur trail that I had intended to take,
switchbacking down the west side to meet the main trail FT120 that
would continue north over Trellis Pk.  I instead took FT120 south the
short distance back to my car. It was late afternoon and I wanted to
get down off of Auxor Rd before the weather changed.  So far, just
high stratus had been filtering the sunlight.

Safely back at the bottom of Auxor Rd, I decided to continue right on
FT419 (rather than going back up to the divide at the TrestlePkTH then
down Trestle Creek.)  The right turn would take me down Lightning
Creek to Clark Fork. I had been hesitant about taking that route up
due to markings on the forest map showing "low water crossings" on
this road, and a section of that road marked "4WD" on the old map
(just noticed that the newer map I bought shows no such markings or
designation.)  It seems the "low water crossings" had been
re-engineered into broad dips in the road at tributaries, with a metal
grill covering a concrete channel across the road.  In Clark Fork I
turned right towards Sandpoint. It was now dusk, and I was undecided
whether to overnight nearby, probably a short way up TrestleCreek Rd,
where I had stayed Thursday night, or continue the drive down to Coeur
D Alaine, where I planned to use the library Sunday afternoon.  Ended
up blowing past the Trellis Cr Rd turn so continued on south. Just
before reaching Ponderey, on Hwy 200 where the speed limit keeps
alternating between 65 and 45, suddenly flashing police lights in my
mirror. The cop asked what I thought the speed limit was there, I said
didn't know. He said it was 45. How fast do you think I was going? I
offered "50?" He said he clocked me at 60 dropping down to about 55.
Took my license, asked if my licecen was good, I looked puzzled, he
repeated the question, I said "uh, yeah?"   He went back to his car,
after a while came back returned my licence, said I can go. I looked
surprised, said, thanks, he said, just pay a little more attention to
your speed, OK?.  OK.  Drove on, got gas at Walmart just out of town,
arriving at my usual hwy 50 rest stop between CDA and Post Falls by
10pm.   Next morning, drove a few exits further west to the truck stop
to take a shower, returned to town did some shopping at Winco, got to
the library hello early walked the park a bit till it opened at noon,
wrote emails til it closed at 5, (with the last minute WiFi glitch
there sending off my work in progress) moved on to correct the email
issue at a JackInTheBox near Winco, pretty much same routine this
morning, and now I'm caught up.

The weather forecast was a dud. They've been gradually walking back
their dire predictions of an inch of rain Sunday night-Monday, at
least here in town, it's been a few spits is all. So I'm thinking of
heading back north tonight, plan to drive into the Priest Lake area,
to investigate some of the ICT access points, stop at the local ranger
station there for info, staying near my car while the forecast is
still "unsettled" There will a a few longer hikes in that area,
probably a few overnight backpacks.  Still a lot of nasty road for the
zombaroo to endure.  Then mop up a few loose ends - theTrestle Pk
ridge, the Shiloh half-day outing.  Should be finished well before the
end of this month.  Then either splice up a few other gaps on my way
back south to Boise, or, more likely, hopefully still, a new adventure
for a while in October in Canada.