I signed up for a 4-day BCRT with WTA in The Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness and arrived the day before to finish up some business on a few peaks in the area I hadn't yet visited. I went out to the Teepee Trailhead and made the short hike up to West Butte which is next to the slightly higher Oregon Butte.
Then it was off to a couple of 5900' bumps near the side of the road on the way back to Godman Guard Station where I camped at a logging spur just below the facility. There is also a free campground across the road.
First up was Little Turkey Tail, a short walk up from the road. I found some old trail leaving from a camp spot.
Then an unnamed 5900' point just above Godman. An unmarked spur road goes by the highpoint in a grassy meadow but I walked a bit further to Godman Benchmark for better views.
I then drove over to The Sawtooth Trailhead for the unnamed highpoint on Burnt Ridge. Peakbagger shows the summit by Lady Camp but Lists of John has it a bit before in another closed contour on the map. Lots of snow on the large flat area.
I returned to Godman and met most of the group who were at the campground before settling in for the night.
In the morning we set up to be packed in by Andy and his mule team out of the Pomeroy Ranger Station.
The Backcountry Horsemen had come in prior to our trip and logged off the West Butte Creek Trail about 6.5 miles down to the junction with East Butte Creek so we were tasked to clean up a landslide area just past our camp on Rainbow Creek as well as repair some tread over steep areas that had degraded to the point that it was no longer safe for stock to use.
On the second day three of us went 2.7 miles further up the trail to the junction of East and West Butte Creek Trails. We were to open up a section of long-abandoned trail coming down from The Twin Buttes side of West Butte Ck Trail. A group of hunters has adopted the trail down to the first crossing opposite where we would be working but our section consisted of 1/3 mile of trail with 5 crossings of Butte Creek. This was truly a jungle with decades old vine maple, slide alder and thimbleberry to cut out. We could only feel the old tread with our feet as hardly any was visible.
The three of us worked two days but left a 270 yard section undone. We did bushwhack to the last of the 5 crossings and could see an obvious tread across the creek. A group from Northwest Youth Corps will spend two weeks in here later in summer so should have this finished as well as work on the section that goes to Teepee Trailhead.
The final morning we packed up and started up the trail passing the mule team headed down for our gear. It had heated up significantly so we were even more grateful for having our gear hauled up the 2200' ascent to Godman.
On the way home I stopped off for a hike to Table Rock Lookout. I knew snow was blocking the road from a recent report. Indeed it was as a 10-15' deep snow drift blocks the road about 3 miles from the lookout.
I scrambled up the north ridge instead of walking out to the spur road that goes up to the lookout.
Table Rock is an appropriate name for this place as it's very flat on top.
On the way down I passed a monument to Kendall who devised the plan for this road which bears his name.
All and all a nice visit to this part of the state.
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