BarbE, Denali Girl, Snowdog (aka Ama Sherpani), rodman and I headed over to the Teanaway Country where we found better weather than on the west side.
I called the Cle Elum Ranger Station a week ago to get the Teanaway road conditions and they said that FS9703 was closed at the junction with the N. Fork Teanaway road... due to logging operations and a huge mud hole that stretched the length of the road, making it impassible for cars. This road closure was confirmed by Pef's Navaho Pass trip report two days later.
Well... we weren't going to let any little ole road closure get in our way... so, from 29 Pines Campground, we drove the N. Fork road a tenth of a mile past the turnoff for FS9703 and found a parking spot (2760') that allowed plenty of passing room for other cars and trucks.
We assembled our mountain bikes and made the 2.7 mile ride to the Stafford Creek trailhead (3100')... where we stashed our bikes in the woods and started booting up the trail. After two miles of hiking (~4000') we left the trail and headed uphill on steep terrain that led us to the SE ridge (6000') of Freedom Peak and an excellent lunch spot.
After leaving our lunch spot we followed the easy ridge (several ups and downs) to the summit (6442')... a beautiful ridge walk with in-your-face views of Earl, Navaho, Three Brothers and most of the Stuart Range.
The two stream crossings were interesting on the way in... but we were able to make them easier on the way out... mostly because we didn't care if we got wet at the end of the day.
Denali Girl did not do any of the off-trail portion of the hike, but did volunteer two hours of trail maintenance on the two mile hike back to her bike.
Roundtrip mileages... 5.4 mile bike ride, gaining 340 feet of elevation... 7.6 mile hike, gaining 3487 feet of elevation.
When we got back to the trailhead, it is impossible for me to describe how nice it was to be able to get on a bike and coast the 2.7 miles back to the car!!!
GPS route and photos of our bike and hike to Freedom Peak.
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"Teanaway 70" Peaks List... a guide to hiking and scrambling in the Teanaway Area.
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"Teanaway 70" Peaks List... a guide to hiking and scrambling in the Teanaway Area.
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Thanks for the great photos and trip report.
We drove the Stafford Creek Road on Sunday May 8th and there were 3 vehicles parked along side the road near the gate at Standup Creek. There was no logging occurring nor logging trucks using the Stafford Creek road on May 8th. Should be OK to drive that Stafford Creek road on weekends. As I recall, it was a similar situation on the N Fork Teanaway Rd last Spring-Summer with no logging trucks using the road on the weekends.
An almost flat looking "easy" 2.7 mile bike ride to the trailhead, and yet it seemed harder than anticipated.
The fact that the road is pretty torn up by logging trucks didn't help either.
The bike ride, some bushwhacking, several creek crossings, a steep climb, and finally the payoff: a wonderful ridge walk to the summit.
A pleasant surprise came on the return bike ride. That's when I realized we had been gaining constant elevation on the way in and we ended up coasting all the way back to the car.
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