[raising3hikers]

Fool Hen Mtn 8168' Foxy Pk 7553' Zirconium Pk 8025' Skeptical Butte 7949' day 1 This past weekend, I headed into the Diamond Creek fire area from last year to climb a few peaks. My hope was that not many of the trees had fallen over yet and some snow may make things a bit easier. This turned out to be mostly true. I started at the lower Billy Goat TH, as the road is closed to the upper until they take out a few more dead trees. I headed straight up the rib until I found the trail. Despite everything being burnt, the trail tread was easily found. I followed it where I could and only a few big trees crossed the trail to Billy Goat pass. One of the best things was a colorful glacier lily field to break up the charcoal forest.

glacier lily

lots of flowers in this spot

At the pass, I encountered snow and pockets of green trees that survived the fire. Many areas of erosion on the trail but easily followed. As I neared Drake creek, there was much more downfall. Before I crossed the creek, I headed East so I could take a b-line towards the Fool Hen Mtn area. I found a skinny log to cross the creek and I was on my way up the mostly dry slopes. The areas that were burnt, were really easy because of no brush and long sight lines. As I hit the ridge, I was in snow again but it was easy. I went up and over smaller bumps en route to Fool Hen.

Fool Hen Mtn

icy fool hen lake down below

summit register

Fox Lakes

view to the South

After the summit, I headed down towards the Fox Lakes to then traverse to the North towards Pk 7553(Foxy) This was easy on mixed snow and charcoal.

upper Fox Lake

register with familiar names

From there, I headed NW towards Diamond Point and found a faint trail. The sun was out and it was getting hot. Luckily I found a nice stream below a snow field to get a couple bottles of water.

Fool Hen Mtn

Pasayten pks

I traversed underneath Diamond Pt and headed towards Zirconium. Easy slopes and 3 possible summit spots. I checked each out but didn't find a register. So far, so good, I had plenty of time to get over towards Skeptical Butte where I saw a dry area in the North basin to set camp. The descent from Zirconium had some of the best mountain aromas that I can remember. A flattish area was pretty soggy on my way to the saddle but easy none the less.

Zirconium

At the Skeptical saddle, I headed up more burnt slopes a couple hundred feet to the dry area above the burn to finally drop my overnight gear off at. Until that point, I had carried all my gear up and down every place I went. It was nice to get that stuff of my back while I went up the NE ridge to tag Skeptical Butte. I found the register and just about all the same names from the other pks were in this one, too.

almost to Skeptical Butte

lookoing across to Fool Hen

I headed back down to the basin and set up camp, it was tempting to head down towards Diamond Creek to find a campsite closer to the TH but I decided to stay after a long first day.

clouds above camp

day 2 I was up and hiking by 5:15am, I walked through more burn down Diamond Creek and eventually found a trail. There were more pockets of forest that survived as I made my way towards Three Fools Pass. At the pass, it looks the same as it did 2 years ago when I traveled through. The fire missed most of it other than a couple burnt trees. I made my way back towards the Drake creek crossing and found many more down logs and burned areas. This was probably the worst area that I traveled. A little annoying but that's what I expected more of the area to be like. I reached Billy Goat pass again and enjoyed the rest of the way down the trail getting back to my truck at 930

view to the West to Many Trails

Eightmile Pk

In the end, the trails were in good enough shape despite the fire. But, every windstorm that goes by, hundreds of dead trees will start to fall 25.75 miles 9500' elevation gain 2 days

[iron]

did the larches survive or were they toasted?

[wildernessed]

We just squeaked a late trip in there a year before the burn unfortunately we put off other trips. Good work and beta.

[RichP]

Thanks for the detailed report and pm on conditions. I'm hoping to be in the area later this week. I'm surprised there is so little snow. There is barely more than when I passed through that area in late July 2010. Hoping the rest of the Pasayten doesn't burn this year but am not holding my breath. BTW, I like the name "Zirconium" much more than "Bauble Butte" per Peakbagger.

[silence]

Sweet climbs ... congrats! ..... but the burn is sad

[Stefan]

Thanks for the update on conditions for that area!

[cascadetraverser]

Wow...pictures really convey the extent of that burn. Far cry from the terrain of my youth. Brave of you to go out in the heart of the charred forest and accomplish all that.

[raising3hikers]

[cartman]

This was a wonderful area before the burn. This is what it used to look like. Curious, why'd you bypass Diamond Point? Also, did you get a look toward the east from Foxy? Would like to know if the area around Flaming Mtn and Newland Pt were burned.

[Distel32]

Glad I got a couple trips in there before that...

[Brushbuffalo]

[raising3hikers]

[Perry]

Thanks for the TR. That was one of my favorite areas. I wonder how long it will be before trails are cleared enough to get my pack goats in there again.