[More Cowbell]

This is prime time for Esmerelda. 7 miles RT 1700-1800 ft gain with many options for more gain and pain. Go now! Today was glorious with a cool breeze, NOT ONE BITING BUG and full sun. All you whiners about not having anywhere to hike should just put a sock in it. Today's drive in on the Teanaway Rd involved many animals trying to become my dinner. Cows were on the gravel section, Deer and tons of suicidal birds. Drive carefully. Things are just different with all the logging in there now. I got a late start and the parking lot was full at 11:30 on a Friday but I only had to park a few cars down the road. There always seems to be a dog issue on these trails and today was the pooping by the TH sign brown lab from Oregon. Of course the owners didn't clean it up and oddly I never saw them on the Esmerelda trail the entire day which means that they most probably were on the Ingalls "no dang dogs" trail.

It still says "NO DOGS". Hint hint

I wanted flowers and a mostly snow free trail and that's exactly what I got. Most of the blow downs have been cleared (just not on the old boggy lower trail). Lots of fresh horse poop to step over but they haven't muddied up the trail too much yet. There are many many stream crossings all the way up but none were scary and didn't seem any worse in the late afternoon on the way down. Flowers start right away. And the rocky outcroppings before the Ingalls turnoff have some amazing pink displays going on.

Penstemon/Columbia Lewisia Pinkness

In the pink

Penstemon Close Up

Penstemon Hot Pinkness

Soon you come upon the meadow of wonderment. It's boggy but full of beauty.

Meadow of wonder

Meadow at it's peak of bloom

Elephants Head

White Bog Orchid

I always take the old trail in and the new upper trail out and was hoping all the water wasn't going to make that a big muddy mistake. It was pretty mucky but worth it for the extra flowers that I was able to see.

Bracted Lousewort

Green Bog Orchid

Yellow Monkey Flower

State Bird Food

Then I ran into the droppings of the Teanaway Pistachio Bandit ONCE AGAIN.

The Teanaway Pistachio Bandit

He always seems to get to my hikes right before me. Soon you rejoin the real trail and pass a junction for an old mining area (yet to be explored by me). There's no sign pointing "thataway" just a sign for Esmerelda.

Junction for the old mining area

Then it starts a totally reasonable grade of ascent up into rock rubble and Anemone territory. I didn't even try to photograph the Anemones as the wind was providing quite the natural AC all the way up. You pass a junction for Lake Ann (County Line Trail) and an incredible lunch spot soon appears after a minor bit of snow.

Snowy Fortune Creek Pass

Water Water Everywhere

Almost to the pass

Hawkins Mt. from the pass

Lunch Knoll up that way

You get a great view of Hawkins, Ingalls, Esmereldas and the tip of Stuart from here. I found a windbreak and had the pass mostly to myself the entire time.

4 labels

Shoeless shot

After a nice rest and a lingonberry and PB sandwich I was ready to head back down. What else did I see... Just more flowers, views and horse poop (which for some amazing reason was fly free today).

Columbine

Queens Cup

Longs Pass trail

Looking towards Longs Pass

[ashleys237]

dogs are allowed on the longs pass trail, and all other trails in the area except the ingalls lake trail. Just FYI

[marta]

Great report. It looks to be prime flower time on a prime flower hike.

[More Cowbell]

[ashleys237]

i've asked the rangers about it and you can take dogs on the trail to longs pass, they just don't want dogs at ingalls lake. i think they should have better signage for this, as us dog owners have to endure lots of mean looks and snide remarks along the way. it's worth it though, what a beautiful hike!

[joyhiker]

What would you suggest if a person wanted to backpack this trail? Are there any camps around the area? Joyhiker

[More Cowbell]

There are many places to camp in the first 2 miles (a few more spots on the lower boggy trail). The mine trail has a huge camp spot and I would imagine more on the way in. Fortune Creek Pass is windy but also has a big area to camp. I don't know about the area over to Lake Ann or down from Fortune Creek to Gallagher Head Lake but I would imaging there are good spots, just more motorized vehicles on the Gallagher side. You can do a big 12 mile loop if you go up to Fortune and down to Gallagher and out to the road with a 2 mile road walk back up to the parking area.

[joyhiker]

Thanks! The Mine trail?? Don't know about that one ...don't see that one on the green trail...I've always avoided this area because of the many cars parked @ the trailhead....am quite familiar with most of the Teanaway except this trail...Joyhiker

[Stella]

I think the monkey flower is actually a rock penstemon. Encountered a similar flower on Pollalie Ridge over the weekend and found the ID on the Burke Herbarium website.

Rockpenstemon

[Quark]

Because of your nice flower report, we wanted to do this yesterday. We got to the trailhead as about 25 kids and several adults were hoisting their packs for a backpacking trip. We hemmed and hawed about it and were on the fence about whether to do another trail instead, when 12 horses with riders and a mule came out of the shrubbery down the road and plodded up the trail. That tipped the scales, and we went to Iron Pk instead.

[More Cowbell]

I forgot a couple of photos, not that they're all that exciting. Monkey Flower error all fixed now too. I was fooled by the color and didn't even bother to identify the petals and leaves.

West Esmerelda?

Typical scene every 5 minutes