Backpacker – August 2019

JULY/AUGUST 2019

BACKPACKER.COM 23

OREGON BUTTE LOOKOUT

WENAHA-TUCANNON WILDERNESS, WA

The journey is just as good as the

destination on the 6-mile out-and-

back to the Oregon Butte Lookout

(actually in Washington). The

approach packs in forested can-

yons, empty ridges, and an array of

midsummer blooms. And then, of

course, it deposits you at an aerie

on 6,387-foot Oregon Butte, the

highpoint of Washington’s Blue

Mountains. Venture out from the

Teepee trailhead, following the

Oregon Butte Trail through a forest

studded with flowers like purple

lupine and yellow aster. Break

above the trees near mile 2.5, then

continue a half-mile to the lookout.

In summer, it’s staffed by folks who

scan for wildfire smoke, but they

don’t mind sharing the view—a

360-degree stunner that stretches

75 miles south to Oregon’s

Wallowa Mountains. Contact

http://www.fs.usda.gov/umatilla

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INSIDERS GUIDE

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THE EXPERIENCE

PHOTO BY ADAM MOWERY / TANDEMSTOCK.COM

9

Party on a peak.

Join BACKPACKER and

Big City Mountaineers

for a continent-spanning

National Summit Day

celebration on August 3.

Learn more at backpacker

.com/nationalsummitday.

LIK E A LOT OF HIK ER S, I took

trails for granted for far too long. But

that changed six years ago in the North

Cascades, when the path I was following

disappeared into a brush tunnel of alder

and willow so high and thick, I immediately

regretted wearing shorts. While my hiking

partner and I paused to debate the pros and

cons of continuing, a woman and her two

kids burst through the wall of branches.

The look on her face clearly indicated that

the cons had won out. “I’m kind of mad at

the Forest Ser vice right now,” she ha lf-

joked a s the trio squeezed pa st.

Now, I recall this woman’s words while

on a trip with my Forest Service trail

crew. We’re 5 miles deep in Washington’s

Glacier Peak Wilderness, a district that has

a checklist of brush tunnels and downed

trees to contend with every year. Loppers

and folding saw in hand, I give the foliage a

drive-by trim as I descend into a forested

drainage where downfall dominates.

Mad at the Forest Service?! I understa nd

the frustration, but my six-person crew

has more than 700 miles of trail to main-

tain. We have no money for overtime, and—

with fire suppression eating up more of the

budget every year—we rely on volunteers.

Any hiker dismayed by the sorry state of

a neglected trail should pitch in. Channel

your frustration by swinging a tool. It might

change the way you look at trails forever.

It did for me. It’s mid-morning, 7 miles

along the Buck Creek Trail, a path that

burned last year, and we’re here to clean up

the mess. First: a 50-yard stretch of dead-

fall piled like pick-up sticks. By now, my

partner and I know the routine and drop

our packs. We prep each log by whacking

off its limbs, ma king our cuts, a nd heav-

ing the pieces off the trail. Settling into the

rhythmic pull of a two-person crosscut saw

is simultaneously soothing and trying—we

move through wood with a back-and-forth

stroke that feels like relief, even as my back

a nd a rms a nd legs ache.

These days, when I’m off the job and I

hike through a corridor of cut logs—maybe

cleared so long ago they’ve started to

decompose into the dirt or sprout shelves

of fungi—I imagine what the pileup looked

like before a trail crew came upon it. Once,

in Canyonlands National Park, I paused to

marvel at a 20-step rock staircase, remem-

bering days I spent on Colorado trails,

heaving boulders into hand-dug pockets

and crossing my fingers each one fit so I

wouldn’t have to haul it back out.

As we descend—now on the Boulder Pass

Trail—we stop once more. I force my way

into the tangles of a vine maple to reach

the base of a long limb with my hand saw.

I haven’t returned to the North Cascades

trail where I once encountered the mom

and her two kids in years, but I find myself

wondering if the brush has been cut back.

Maybe it was trimmed by a trail crew like

mine, or maybe by volunteers. I hope she

was one of them.

HELP OUTWant to work on a trail? Inquire

with your local hiking club or look into the

American Hiking Society’s volunteer vaca-

tions. Day trips often involve cutting brush,

while longer ones give you chances to tackle

big projects like constructing bridges or

walls or even building new trails.

SWE AT EQUI T Y

MAINTAINING TRAILS

Use some elbow grease to give back to the

(^8) land you love. By Claire Thompson