[meck]

Prospect Ridge is accessed via an old Forest Service Road (FSR) hike in the Skokomish River/Lake Cushman area. I'm posting this TR as a bit of an experiment (after having discussed with a couple of others): I really appreciated the solitude along here after spending all week w/ people, but this route could probably use just a bit more human-traffic to maintain it as something that can still be hiked (its filling in w/ "challenging" vegetation fast). I hiked up the decommissioned FSR under good weather, but a low'ish cloud ceiling. Its a ~12.6 mile round trip from where you can park your vehicle. There are no water sources beyond the first 1.5 miles. Ranger Rock posted a very good TR from here a few years ago; it's description of the road conditions is completely accurate, alder & scotch broom hell included. The road is very good in places, and pretty horrible in others. The "decommissioned" sections have had the road bed graded sideways to the point that it feels like side-hilling (lots of small rocks to roll your foot on and twist your ankles). Whatever material was brought in to cover the decommed road bed must have contained a mixture of alder (at this point still easy to push through), and invasive scotch broom, which has now grown into near impassable thickets (pretty much the exact opposite of letting the local vegetation re-wild the road), and is home to ticks. I noticed that the scotch broom also seems to exude some sort of sap while blooming, which all of my exterior clothing and pack successfully collected (sticky!). The lower creek crossings are somewhat challenging due to the deep gullies left behind by the culvert removal and may be impassible without ropes, or creative placement of blowdown, in a few years (currently have to almost-scramble up rock faces to get up to the uphill side of the road bed in two of the gullies).

hope you like this view, there's a decent amount of this you have to push through... and the ticks are awaiting your arrival!

first views south across the Brown Creek drainage

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former culvert/now gully

a nice, if narrow path out on the left, this one should hold up for a while...

a nice section of the old road

and so it begins....

someone has made a few small paths in a couple of the scotch broom sections

just look at those vibrant colors...

you can tell where the center of the road was (less packed dirt....)

the southern elbow of the Hood Canal

many sections of the road looked like this... somewhat easy to push through now.... but give it a few years

Once I managed to get past these unpleasant sections (~first 3.5 miles) to the upper reaches of the road on the ridge, the views were excellent. I could see down the Lebar Creek drainage, and out over the southern end of the Hood Canal. The road travel up here was pleasant and restful (route lined by many beautiful pines, interspersed with expansive views). The wildflowers were out too which was quite the visual treat. I visited the wooded ridge line highpoint (3812') before heading back down. As RR noted, there are a few peakaboo views down to Lake Cushman from the summit, but better views can be found from the ridge road and a couple of spur roads (that aren't depicted on the Green Trails maps).

nice assortment of pines to look at up here

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"Lebar Ridge" w/ Skokomish river drainage beyond

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the road along the ridge that I passed along

a pine lined promenade

the wooded summit now in view

nearing the end of the old road

interesting reds on a dying pine

open'ish woods along the summit

the summit rock block

Lightning Peak (I think) with its head in the clouds

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view NE across Lake Cushman valley from one of several short spur roads branching off the main ridge road.

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Mt Rose almost due north

the road back down

Mostly a nice hike overall, but the lower section may be impassible in a year or two. Also spotted, and had to brush off, many ticks from my clothing. This would make an excellent "real trail" if the lower section was thoroughly brushed out. If I go back, I will bring tools to clear a path through the scotch broom....