Kettle Crest Hike & Road Tour
13/August/2009 14:03 Filed in: Photo Tour
| Oikos
Thoughts
The remains of Ryan’s Cabin about a quarter mile hike down and east of the Kettle Crest Trail in the Kettle River Range of Northeast Washington State.
Link to Kettle Crest Hike & Road Tour photo album.
There are times in life when you just need a good excuse to do something you really want to do, but for some reason you just can’t make the commitment. Up in Northeastern Washington State in the fall that is when the mighty hunters go “road hunting.” The reason for road hunting is you really don’t want to get anything from the hunt, you just want to drive around on back country roads and admire God’s handiwork.
If you move that October event forward to late July or August instead of road hunting you go prospecting for huckleberries. In this case if you find some - you don’t want to find too many, maybe enough for a pie. However you want to store that secret patch in your mind for the time you might really want to return and seriously pick some of the delicious berries on some perfect future date.
With the open ended desire to go prospecting for huckleberries, last week my cousin Stan Miller and I got into my Saturn to test the waters, or the bushes in the Kettle River Range. The first turn off the paved Boulder - Deer Creek Road was onto the Bull Dog Cabin Road some 15 miles or so from the junction with US 395, which continues north to the Canadian border. As far as my memory served me I could not remember being on that road. Way back there we came to sort of a summit that marked the divide between the north and south forks of Boulder Creek. The first picture of the camp at that summit in the photo album confirmed that new territory in my mind.
In the past access to this part of the backcountry was through the South Fork Boulder Creek Road, but a large slide about three miles up from the turn off the Boulder - Deer Creek Road, closed this access about a decade ago and it has not been restored.
From this drainage high point it was down hill to the remaining South Fork Road about 7 miles upstream from the slide. So far no significant huckleberries. Eventually the South Fork Road ends at a fork, one going up US Creek between US Mountain and the Twin Sisters, the other becoming the Albian Hill Road that eventually joins SR 20 (Sherman Pass Scenic Byway). Now on familiar ground it was forward to the next prospecting spot, Ryan’s Cabin.
We had hiked to Ryan’s Cabin over 20 years ago, but I remembered little other than being there. Back then we followed the trail directly off the road, this time there was an access road that took us up to a little simple campground and sort of a combined trailhead to Ryan’s Cabin and the Stickpin Trail. The Ryan’s Cabin Trail said the Kettle Crest Trail was 1.5 miles distant and we were off. When we reached the cabin, it being near the Kettle Crest we decided to adventure to the top. Once there and only picking about 7 huckleberries along the way, we decided to continue down the Crest Trail and pick up the Stickpin Trail to return to the car. The Stickpin Trail descends from the Crest into the South Boulder Basin for about 2.1 miles, making our round trip about 6 miles total. The elevation gain was about 1100 vertical feet and with frequent stops for pictures and huckleberry prospecting we were out about 3 hours.
After that we knew the next stop on this prospecting adventure would be the “Old Stage Road.” This road was build in 1892 to connect the then thriving town of Marcus on the Columbia River above Kettle Falls, with the Puget Sound. This short stretch of road is all that remains of that old stage line. In 1898 the road was abandoned for a new road over Sherman Pass, where SR 20 now crosses the range. Again the last time we were up there, there was just a marker and a very overgrown trail. Now the road has been restored so that horse drawn wagons, as well as other non-motorized transport can make the journey back in time. Part way through the stage road is the trail to Copper Butte the highest mountain in the range, which is next on my agenda of this time maybe “summit prospecting.”
After the Old Stage Road we continued huckleberry prospecting towards Sherman Pass, deciding that this was too late in the season and that many heavy rains in June and July may have adversely affected the local crop. Along the way there were other developed trailheads with rustic campgrounds well worth a visit. Once on the Sherman Pass Scenic Byway we headed east towards Kettle Falls.
As we were nearing the junction of SR 20 and US 395, I remembered that I had not been to Trout Lake since I was in high school. Hence at the turn off we were on our 5 mile journey to Trout Lake. My memory of Trout Lake was similar to huckleberry prospecting, only that time it was fly fishing. With one cast I hooked a 16 inch trout, and that was the fulfillment of that fly fishing adventure.
Trout Lake is now the southern terminus of the Hoodoo Canyon Trail that passes from the Sherman Pass drainage at Trout Lake into the Deadman Creek drainage, passing Emerald Lake along the 4.7 mile journey. Last year while prospecting for huckleberries, I discovered that our family’s secret huckleberry patch was now the site of the northern terminus of the Hoodoo Canyon Trail.
The Kettle River Range is one of the best kept secrets for the back country traveler and hiker in the Pacific Northwest. A popular backpacking trip along the Kettle Crest Trail, adventures from the Deer Creek Summit to Sherman Pass. South of Sherman Pass it continues to the Colville Indian Reservation and the 7000 foot summits diminish slowly. The whole range is about 80 miles in length, from near the Canadian Border, where the Kettle River bisects the mountains, to the Columbia River on the south where the Columbia Basalt Plateau becomes the southern terminus. As a general rule mountains north of Sherman Pass were covered during the ice age, Sherman Peak and those to the south seem to have had their summits above the ice.
For those unfamiliar with huckleberries they are smaller and much more flavorful than wild or domestic blueberries. They grow in abundance in the United States from the Cascades through the Rockies, even though most of the commercial activities surrounding huckleberries center in Northern Idaho and Western Montana. Last year a gallon of huckleberries fetched about $40. This year because of an abundant crop in North Idaho the price has fallen to around $30. So far huckleberries are only found in the wild, but many horticultural researchers are getting close to developing a domestic variety. Then huckleberry prospecting will diminish into a trip to the backyard.