[wildernessed]

Location : West of Twisp, Wa Map : GTM - Buttermilk Butte, TOPO, NFS Sawtooth Wilderness Map Stats : 8.5 miles, 4300' loop

Little Bridge Creek - Little Bridge Creek Butte - Thompson Ridge Loop

Last year I first made my way into the West Fork Little Bridge Creek several times exploring this off the beaten path area which has been changed due to wildfires, with resultant blow downs, erosion, and large washouts. The trails have long been abandoned by the forest service and the remaining trails are different on different maps, but still the fires opened up some of the areas to cross country travel, and partial trails do exist. I did not get back into the Main fork of Little Bridge Creek so I thought that this would be a good late Spring trip. I saw the early obvious junction of the Little Bridge Creek trail heading to the right and up in elevation a bit from previous trips and according to the best information I could get it ran above the creek all the way to around 5600' up the basin and crossed it gaining a East ridge off peak 7402', it then gained that ridge all most to the summit and crossed to it's South side and in front of 7422' then dropped into Little Slate lake. That was "once upon a time" that route as I found last year coming up the West Fork Little Bridge Creek has been obliterated, so what I was thinking was maybe if conditions allowed we could follow Little bridge Creek up the basin cross the creek, camp on the ridge in an open spot at 6200' plus then do the 7402' peak. Several things popped into my mind, the creek crossing, what was left of the trail and how did the fire change the terrain and we would be backpacking down under a East ridge meaning the North side so snow could be problematic, especially with the heavy snow year, and the expected warm temps. Steve, Hit the Trail, and I assembled at the TH all of us having done trips up the West Fork previously and started backpacking everything was green and dry with wildflowers, especially nice groups of Indian Paintbrush as we made our way along an overgrown trail up the Main Little Bridge Creek drainage with slowly deteriorating conditions especially some pretty big sections of blowdown, lost the trail, if it was still there somewhere but kept paralleling the North side of the creek gaining elevation with it, I think our first snow was at 5100' and we kept sidehilling through forest and brush to maybe 5400' when we met one of those huge washouts covered in snow with a stream running beneath it, we went up a little in elevation to see where we could possibly get across it and took a lunch break. From our lunch break perch we could see, now in the opening basin that everything before us was covered in many feet of snow in fact there were no flat spots to setup a tent if we wanted so we decided to go up, we were hopeful that all the rugged rock would lead to an open South exposed ridge / summit. The broad peak above us was at 7056' so we had a way to go straight up in afternoon sun on predominantly good snow and occasional rock so we had at it with plenty of GU, electrolyte laced water, and rest breaks, eventually geting to the top and finding a nice open area with plenty of tent spots on flat rock, with dry wood, and it was the only dry spot around which was lucky for us because the snow was softening up a lot. So it all worked out, we setup our camp, melted water, filtered water, made a fire pit, gathered wood, explored the near area, had supper, a nice fire in completely calm and warm conditions with great views, crashed, had an awesome dawn coffee break per usual with Hit the Trail, packed up, then followed Thompson Ridge back East with continued good views and a lot of snow. I was glad we were out of there early with the softness of the snow. I got a mini glissade in along the way and we curved back into the hot lower temps and wildflowers eventually hitting the truck. Very hard, hot, scenic trip, and a great campsite above 7000' across from some nice peaks. Thanks for the adventure guys it's going to be a long time for some of these areas to melt out, Oh, and no bugs.

Kick in those steps !

I kept shouting over to Steve from the opposite side of the gully "It looks like your sweating" but he looks pretty relaxed and comfortable now.

Piles of snow.

Hit the Trail thinking WTF, but a good payoff summit and Thompson Ridge run the next day.

The only flat spots in the drainage and on the ridge were on this 7056' broad peak I will refer to as "Little Bridge Creek Butte".

Must get to the top of the snow cone !

Wolf Creek Drainage - Gardner Ridge - Story - Milton

East Abernathy and Abernathy center background.

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[HitTheTrail]

This was sold to me as a trip where we would hike about 3 miles into the basin and set up camp where I would lounge around and hold down the fort while Batman and Robyn did the surrounding peaks. Well, it didn’t quite play out along that line. In fact it turned into a butt kicking snow boot to the top where we camped with no water. It also turned into one of the best trips I have been on in a long time! Glad we decided to take a chance on the top and the road less traveled. Hope Wildernessed plans more of these trips that go wrong.

The entrance to the basin we decided not to enter

We decided to head up slope instead.

up

Wildernessed near the saddle

Steve going up

Wildernessed on the rocks

HitTheTrail and Steve on the rocks

Evening hot toddy

No running water up here

Steve with our campsite in the background which is just beyond the highpoint at the right of the photo.

Shooting Wolf Creek, Gardner meadow, and Gardner

Whee

Whee 2

Butt almost fully wet by now

[wildernessed]

Nice pics I did give a disclaimer though... 1. I can't confirm trail conditions. 2. I can't confirm terrain conditions. 3. Stream crossing and snow depth / quality unknown. I can confirm your a tough "old" guy I know I won't be in your boots when I am 73 y/o.

[Bootpathguy]

[Bootpathguy]

[HitTheTrail]

[wildernessed]

[wildernessed]

[Distel32]

[wildernessed]

I patched around 16 - 18 holes mostly very minute but one was on the side of the bath tub floor which was surprising. The rock was like a brillo pad. The floor on Big Sky cuben tents is no thicker than the fly so I should have known. I have never used a foot print on any tents though. Thanks for the tenacious and cuben tape Hit the Trail. Definitely will use a Tyvek foot print in the future. The weight, space, and design still beats anything I have experienced in the past.

Wildernessed on the rocks

[HitTheTrail]

Geez, I saw the big holes but not the small ones. Now you have me worried about my Big Sky Soul X2. My NeoAir Xtherm sleeping pad did go flat though. Maybe I will check my tent floor also.