Trip Report
This last weekend did not quite go according to plan, it would seem. When I finally was able to speak to a human at the ranger station in Cle Elum, it was Friday afternoon just before I left.
The information was not promising- she informed me that my campground of choice had been burned in last year's Table Mountain fire and would not reopen until at least August. When asked about the trail conditions, she said that most of the trails had not been cleared of blow down and forest fire debris, and to make matters worse the annual commercial mushroom harvest was in full swing and the area was crawling with people. In her words, "Overall it's really not a nice place to be right now".
We decided to shift gears on the fly and redirect our plans to the Naches/Manastash area. I've got a very remote camping spot about 5 miles south of 410 near the little Naches turnoff that I favor, and we had the whole area to ourselves.
The campfire was stoked to a six foot height and we enjoyed steaks under the stars. Amazingly I had cell coverage up on our ridge top, and was able to text our coordinates to my brother who joined us in the a.m.
We got underway in the morning, but kept running into roadblocks at every turn- it seems there was considerable runoff damage to the forest service roads in the Manastash area and they haven't reopened them yet. We were unable to access any of the trails I came prepared to run, and we had to improvise.
We eventually headed up little Naches road and started poking around for a random trailhead that looked promising.
We found trail 676 and it was labeled as an intermediate difficulty rating at the bottom. Unfortunately this was the Kaner Flats trail and it's reportedly one of the hardest in the Manastash trail system (which I discovered when I got home
). Think incredibly steep hill climbs, lots of scary side hill off camber, super tight offset trees, and slippery wet clay. We never made it to the massive rock garden up above near Shoestring Lake that will pucker your various body parts. I consider myself lucky...
http://youtu.be/JitO_vbO3Kg
By the time I was able to escape the clutches of Aardvark Hill, my 80 had fed the trail gods it's passenger side rear quarter panel, rain gutter, bumper corner, tail light, and drivers side rear quarter panel. I was not terribly impressed, but trail rash is not completely unexpected when you use your truck as we do.
My wife was amazingly cool about me mangling her daily driver, and was less upset about it than I was. My brother claims that the echoes of my displeasure could still be heard in the Cascade Mountain range 24 hours later lol.
We then tried to access funny rocks via the FS roads and trail system, but my maps were not terribly accurate or complete (forgot to download new maps to the GPS) and we were thwarted just a half mile from our goal (as I found out after looking at a real map when I got home).
Despite the frustrations, this was a fun trip and the weather was perfect. We were able to enjoy a campfire in the Manastash without a burn ban which is a rarity , and the scenery was absolutely spectacular. Can't wait to go back (and motivated to get some more armor
)
