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Conrad
Meadow bagger



Joined: 25 Aug 2006
Posts: 2298 | TRs | Pics
Location: Moscow, ID
Conrad
Meadow bagger
PostWed Jul 11, 2007 4:05 pm 
I backpacked the South Fork Tieton River area (Goat Rocks Wilderness) 7/6F-7/8Su with my 14-year-old son. The land and conditions were great. Meadows, creeks, waterfalls, snowfields. Hardly a cloud and few bugs (at least where we were). But navigation was a challenge (or, we were navigation-challenged?)! Day 1, Friday: Misnavigation adventure Left home at 2 AM and reached the trailhead at 8-something; finally started hiking at 9 AM. Driving through Chelan there was a sign advertising an unusual tasty treat: PROPANE FILLED SOFT ICE CREAM On the way home I looked for the sign again to take a picture, but I guess it's only displayed to west-bound drivers. The 13-mile drive up the S Fk Tieton from Rimrock Lake to the Conrad Meadows trailhead is easy, the 1st 6 miles one-lane paved, then good gravel. No Forest Pass required at the Conrad Meadows parking lot (which is at a large horse campground)! The trail (South Fork Tieton Trail 1120) is well-marked (e.g. a "TRAIL FOLLOWS ROAD" sign), except there are several unmarked forks in the first couple of miles. We mostly chose the correct forks by staying left (to stay near the river) except when the right fork appeared more traveled. We accidentally started up the unmarked Conrad Creek trail (a right fork), but in a few yards I saw we were heading too much due west so we backtracked and corrected. In general the trail seemed to diverge a lot from my Green Trails map ("roads & trails--U.S. Forest Service, 1978"). E.g. in reality, Trail 1120 stays on the N side of the S Fk Tieton for the 1st 4 1/2 miles, crossing Conrad Creek on a big bridge. At 4 1/2 miles there's a major fork; both forks are Trail 1120, which makes a big loop around the basin. We meant to take the R fork, NW, to get up to 6200' "Gilbert Basin" (E of Gilbert Peak). But we missed the "obscure" embarassedlaugh.gif trail fork:
Took this pic on the way back
Took this pic on the way back
So we continued left and crossed the river. By the time I realized our error, we had climbed several hundred feet up the left (south) fork of the loop, so we continued up to Surprise Lake, no tragedy:
Surprise Lake
Surprise Lake
The only horses we saw the whole trip were several parked at Surprise Lake (but there were many hoofprints all over). Then we continued the loop W and NW from Surprise Lake, through nice meadows. Now we were looking for an unmarked side trail up to Gilbert Basin, as described in 100 Hikes:
Spring/Manning wrote:
What appears to be a creek gully actually is the ruins of the old track 1/2 mile up to a 5600-foot [sic: actually 6000'] saddle in the South Fork--Conrad divide, the start of all-direction off-trail roaming.
So we were looking for some sort of gully/trail climbing the cliffy slopes above us. We totally missed the actual side trail (on the left in this picture):
Took this pic on the way back
Took this pic on the way back
This side trail fork is at 46 deg 28.628' N, 121 deg 22.570' W, elev 5400' (took a GPS reading on the way back!). So, not seeing this fork, we continued E on the main loop, probing for hikeable routes up to the basin. On one of these probings I had a personal first. I suddenly saw two bear cub butts running away above me! Never saw real wild bear cubs before. Then I saw mama bear looking down at us from the woods. No pictures! We turned around and returned down to the trail, fast. Soon after, near the northernmost point of the loop trail, I found the most likely-looking route up yet, with some definite faint indications of old real trailness. I was also misled by a sign on a tree: <- 1120 -> which made it seem like I had indeed found an old "official" trail fork. So we took this route up, and it was indeed an old steep trail/route we could follow, and we finally reached the ridge top, and lovely Gilbert Basin... Not. There was no lovely open basin, just a narrow ridge with a steep wooded slope on the far side. We were about a mile too far NE on the ridge! So we tried to head SW on a faint trail, but that soon disappeared. So there we were, in lovely view-blocking (and old cheap GPS-blocking) trackless old growth, in a maze of too-steep slopes, at about 5 PM. Well, I managed to lead my son on a navigable route SW through that maze, and we finally reached the edge of Gilbert Basin around 7 PM, and a lovely campsite:
Took this pic the next morning
Took this pic the next morning
Day 2, Saturday: Happy wanderings This day was as easy as the day before was difficult. From our camp at the NE corner of Gilbert Basin, we headed SW toward "Warm Lake Creek" (the main creek in the basin). Just a moment from camp, we discovered the top end of the side trail we had missed the day before, plunging down the slope S toward Trail 1120! We continued SW into Gilbert Basin:
Gilbert Basin
Gilbert Basin
We reached Warm Lake before noon and had lunch:
Warm Lake
Warm Lake
Then we followed Warm Lake Creek north downstream to 5900'. We had to wade across at this spot in our Crocs (the only place we had to wade the whole trip):
Crossing
Crossing
Then we continued N on the 5900' bench toward Conrad Creek. There is a well-used trail along this bench. Eventually a falls on Conrad Creek comes into view:
Conrad Falls
Conrad Falls
Soon we reached Conrad Creek:
Conrad ford
Conrad ford
I'm sure Conrad Creek trail was on the other side, but it was near turnaround time so we declined to wade across. I thought about going home this way the next day; but the map shows a 300' steep step downstream, and not knowing how the trail gets down that, and having had enough adventure for one trip, I decided not. Day 3, Sunday: A little more misnavigation We struck camp and started down the side trail we'd found yesterday morning to get back to Trail 1120 (the main loop trail). We plunged steeply down a couple of hundred feet to a nice bench at 5600'. Here I expected to find 1120. But the trail then dropped off the bench and continued steeply down again. After dropping a couple hundred more feet, I decided we must've missed something, so we returned back up (puff puff) to 5600'. Here fortunately we met a group of boys who told us that we were OK, we just had to keep descending to 1120. Finally, we reached 1120 and made no more wrong turns. We finished the loop clockwise and continued homeward. A mile or two before the car, a hiker overtook us. It turned out to be blueskies -- my first live sighting of an nwhiker! Edit: P.S. There are many large blowdowns on the upper N section of the loop. It might be most pleasant to take the S section to get to the highlands and return the same way, skipping the N section entirely.

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Sore Feet
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Joined: 16 Dec 2001
Posts: 6304 | TRs | Pics
Location: Out There, Somewhere
Sore Feet
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PostWed Jul 11, 2007 11:08 pm 
Excellent. Conditions look very amenable. Maybe with the heat we've had, Warm will get pretty well melted out by the end of next week. How were the overnight temps up there?

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Slugman
It’s a Slugfest!



Joined: 27 Mar 2003
Posts: 16874 | TRs | Pics
Slugman
It’s a Slugfest!
PostThu Jul 12, 2007 1:06 am 
Now you must go back to see Cold lake! Nice report. up.gif Pics are good but too small. frown.gif

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Conrad
Meadow bagger



Joined: 25 Aug 2006
Posts: 2298 | TRs | Pics
Location: Moscow, ID
Conrad
Meadow bagger
PostThu Jul 12, 2007 7:26 am 
Overnight temps: low 50's I'd guess. No dew. It was hot down below, but at 6000' I still closed my light summer bag up tight, and closed the tent windows.

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