Salmon Butte Trail

[geebs]

Our hike out to Salmon Butte was a good reminder that books can QUICKLY go out of date: I had been planning on a 8.4 mile hike to the top of the butte. As I learned after digging around in the forums a little, a sizable chunk of trail was added on at the bottom almost immediately after the 2010 update to 60 Hikes in 60 Miles book. My party was in pretty solid hiking shape so while the extra three-ish miles wasn't terrible, it was longer and harder than we had intended. At about 1.5-2 miles into the hike, when we saw the old wilderness registration notice, I realized that we were in for a lot more of a trek than planned.

Driving note: There is a huuuuuuge pothole immediately after the bridge at the end of the paved section of the Salmon River Road, and the placement makes it rather too easy to bottom out your car--stay on the left side of the bridge if you can and save your undercarriage and hitch from the tender attentions of bridge concrete.

The clouds were down low on the trail and in the woods, so no stunning mountain views, but the low clouds had a charm of their own. The trail was in great condition: a few blow downs but nothing challenging. It is a very steady climb but not one that had us out of breathe, even with our sea-level fitness.



In the upper half of the trail we heard a male ruffed grouse drumming. The rhodies are on their way to blooming, and there were a few wildflowers out (larkspur, paintbrush, corydalis, a couple I can't identify).

After lunch near the top, we turned around and booked it out of there, but managed to catch a glimpse of a varying hare or a white-tailed jackrabbit (I didn't try to get closer to figure it out, as the rabbit was peacefully nibbling in what is probably a pretty decent campsite).



I can't wait to go back when more flowers are blooming and the views are of mountains and not vaporized water.

[Splintercat]

Great first report! Glad you found the forum -- and yes, that TH has changed a lot in the past few years. As converted roads go, the USFS did a good job on this one by deliberating meandering the trail on the old road section and planting the non-trail portions of the road. This followed an aborted effort to build a completely new trail parallel to the road section that was cutting through some big trees, so ran into opposition. I think the meandered trail was a pretty good compromise -- curious of your reaction?

Thanks for posting!

Tom

[miah66]

This followed an aborted effort to build a completely new trail parallel to the road section that was cutting through some big trees, so ran into opposition.

Curious about this.

I saw a flagged trail cutting up the hill from the big bend in the road walk section around where my line in green is. At the new TH, there is a clearing where another trail joins the Salmon Butte trail from the West. I'm assuming it is the same trail? (Line in green) Is this the one you are referring to as cutting through some big trees? That would seem to make sense. It looks like it gets some traffic anyway, as it's flagged and would appear to be a shortcut to the trailhead.

[Aimless]

I think the meandered trail was a pretty good compromise -- curious of your reaction?

I'd be curious of geebs' thoughts, too.

I hiked this less than a month ago and I am about 95% happy with the road conversion results. What they did was far, far better than the great majority of trails placed on old roads. My quibbles are just a few.

In at least one spot where the culvert under the old road was removed, located quite soon after crossing the concrete bridge near the trailhead (the first one?), the creek crossing was very poorly done. The ground on either side is unstable and stays soggy, so that a set of log "rounds" were later embedded in the mud to assist hikers past the mud, but this was one case where the old road culvert should probably have been left in place to prevent erosion, in my opinion.

The trail was made to meander, but in a few spots the newly shaped terrain gave no pretext for the divagations, so quite naturally and justifiably, hikers have just cut across the meander. If you curve the trail, it needs to curve around some perceptible object or feature that justifies the extra steps. In a couple of places they were too lazy or hasty to follow this rule.

Otherwise, I'd say this was a very superior road conversion and if it weren't so expensive to reshape terrain and rebuild trail in this way, I'd love to see more conversions like it.

[-Q-]

I think the meandered trail was a pretty good compromise -- curious of your reaction?

I'd be curious of geebs' thoughts, too.

I hiked this less than a month ago and I am about 95% happy with the road conversion results. What they did was far, far better than the great majority of trails placed on old roads. My quibbles are just a few.

In at least one spot where the culvert under the old road was removed, located quite soon after crossing the concrete bridge near the trailhead (the first one?), the creek crossing was very poorly done. The ground on either side is unstable and stays soggy, so that a set of log "rounds" were later embedded in the mud to assist hikers past the mud, but this was one case where the old road culvert should probably have been left in place to prevent erosion, in my opinion.

The trail was made to meander, but in a few spots the newly shaped terrain gave no pretext for the divagations, so quite naturally and justifiably, hikers have just cut across the meander. If you curve the trail, it needs to curve around some perceptible object or feature that justifies the extra steps. In a couple of places they were too lazy or hasty to follow this rule.

Otherwise, I'd say this was a very superior road conversion and if it weren't so expensive to reshape terrain and rebuild trail in this way, I'd love to see more conversions like it.

I agree with Aimless 100% here.

Overall I am very happy with the road to trail conversion.
One of the best examples I have come across.

[Guy]

Curious about this.

I saw a flagged trail cutting up the hill from the big bend in the road walk section around where my line in green is. At the new TH, there is a clearing where another trail joins the Salmon Butte trail from the West. I'm assuming it is the same trail? (Line in green) Is this the one you are referring to as cutting through some big trees? That would seem to make sense. It looks like it gets some traffic anyway, as it's flagged and would appear to be a shortcut to the trailhead.

Yes your green line is the approximate route of the unfinished trail.

[geebs]

Hi Everyone, thanks for the warm welcome!

The converted roadbed was okay: There were handfuls of wildflowers along the streams that crossed the roads (bleeding hearts, corydalis), but the crossings themselves were pretty sloppy. Well, pretty sloppy at least right now. The log rounds that Aimless mentioned were helpful for getting through that specific (and particularly muddy) area though spaced a little far for anyone under 5'4" (cough, cough, ahem), and several of the stream crossings were shored up with rocks or logs that were stepping stones because of the stream creating pools of standing water and mud. The meandering of the trail is a bit annoying because the conversion is so fresh, I think: the lack of any perceptible point to the curves was a little annoying at the end of a longer-than-expected hike.

Overall, I got the impression that it will be a nice (though probably still soggy in the springtime) trail in 15-20 years as the trees get big enough to look less like woody weeds, and the curves meander around stands of trees instead of nothing in particular.