[whitebark]

This trail is featured in Karen Sykes' "Hidden Hikes in Western Washington" book. It's also used as access for climbing Devils Peak. I thought the route sounded good for a fairly easy, hot weather hike and decided to give it a try. The trail started out following a closed road branching off the Deer Creek Road. At first, the gently climbing road offered easy walking in a shady forest. In a mile the road reached a great viewpoint overlooking Coal Creek and Big Four Mountain. From this point the road/trail started getting much brushier. I had brought hand loppers and a small saw and started doing battle with the brush. But there's only so much one guy can do alone in a day! (if you hike here, bring an army of friends with loppers or better yet a gas-powered brush cutter-- this trail needs help big time). Beyond the first switchback at 1.5 miles, the brush--mostly scratchy salmonberry-- got even more obnoxious. Sensing fresh blood, the black flies came out in force too. The brush eased up just a bit at the second switchback, although sections were bad. Farther on I crossed a old wood bridge, then reached the third switchback. Somewhere around here, supposedly, the trail to the mine and Devils Lake took off. I spotted a few ribbons which led me a couple feet though a tunnel of brush into a gully with running water and a tangle of logs. There was no sign of the overgrown mine access road and trail mentioned in the guidebook. Beyond the gulley a few more ribbons led me up the hill, then the ribbon trail became sparse and hard to follow. On the ground evidence of any hiker traffic was almost nil. Basically I was just crashing through the forest on a cross country route. Roughly following the main creek uphill, I eventually ran into a spot overlooking the creek which here tumbled over a nice waterfall. The terrain ahead looked hard to get past. I figured I was really not on the route at this point and decided to head back. Did some more brush cutting, which should benefit future hikers. Reading past reports on this hike suggest that I was not quite on the route. Neither those reports nor the guidebook make it sound like navigation was that hard. A little puzzling to say the least. Despite the route-finding frustration, I enjoyed the day of scratchy brush-busting fun and Freia the wunderhund got a great workout.

[Sawyer]

That's a trail worth keeping. I'm attaching a map for ya.

Double Eagle map

[whitebark]

Hey thanks Sawyer! Your map clears things up nicely. As I guessed, I was not on the route (wonder what those ribbons were doing there). The map printed in the guidebook is misleading.