[rooinater]

Well not my first backpacking trip, but one of my best friend's first backpacking trip! and she's hooked! We went out to the Upper Gray Wolf area, accessing the trail from the Slab Camp TH and going out to Camp Ellis. We kind of got delayed with getting her dog to the dog sitter and getting out to get permits. So we decided to stop at Camp Ellis instead of going further since we started hiking around noon, and neither of us lookeed up sunset for the day. The trail was pretty dry, with only a few sprinkles over night. On the way out it didn't start really raining until the climb back up to the parking lot from Slab Camp. Here's a few photos, and if you want the whole story (long read) there's a link to the blog post as well below. Which includes a couple more pictures and a lot more writing. Jared's Adventure Blog

[meck]

Nice pics and description! I've been wanting to hike out the rest of that area this summer so thank you for the update! Did you get any impression of what elevation you encounter snow? (I'd assume around 4-5k' right now) Also, what do you think the temps got down to at night?

[rooinater]

The temperature in the morning was about 42 degrees on my little thermometer. I'd assume the snow level was probalby close to 4k'. The original plan was falls camp and see how far we could make it up the way trail to the lake in the morning, but we started about 3-4 hours later than we wanted to, and I haven't been paying attention to what time was sunset. So we made a conservative call so that we could spend time in camp and introduce her to all the little tasks like setting up camp, cooking, food storage and enjoy a small fire before going to sleep.

[bkellygr]

Did you hear from anyone (rangers or hikers) that have taken the trail from Three Forks up to Deer Park? I know that hill side usually melts early, but I'm just not sure if it is too early. I was thinking about this trail but was wanting to take the ridge back to the car. Thanks for sharing!

[rooinater]

The people we ran into at the trailhead when returning to the car said they hiked out that way, but got hailed on. Beyond that I didn't find out any further info on the ridge trail. Sorry, we really didn't even see anyone on the trail the second day at all. The first day there was one person camped at slab camp, then one large group day hiking. Beyond that it was a very vacant trail...

[Boots]

I'm wondering if that was your group my wife and I passed on Sunday. What started out as a nice morning turned to showers in the afternoon by the time we got back to the TH. It was a nice hike for sure.

[RodF]