Kettle Crest Trail

Date: August 29th and 30th 2023

Miles Hiked: 60

This fall I had planned a ten day trip to Washington state to go finish the last thirty miles of the PCT with my hiking partners. I had a couple of extra days to kill while waiting to meet up with them so I searched for some trails under 100 miles to hike along my travels. I considered circumnavigating Glacier Peak or doing the ever so popular Wonderland trail but there are many nearby wildfires and with gas costing $5 a gallon in Washington, I didn’t want to drive hours out of my way. I typically pick the hikes I do during my travels based on what I am driving near. I found the Kettle Crest Trail was only two hours out of my way! My friend Andrew aka “Galileo” was visiting Bozeman at the time and offered to make the trip  out to Washington and do some hiking with me before we split ways on our own objectives in the state. I couldn’t say no to getting to hike with a good friend that shared many miles and previous adventures with me including hiking with my tramily during the heat of NorCal on the PCT, summiting Mount Shasta on a zero day, and coming to meet me and Chewy when we finished the Foothills trail in South Carolina last fall. Not only that but Andrew is in shape to hike very long days, a non negotiable for me on this trip. I really wanted to get some big miles in because it’s my favorite way to enjoy hiking. Although I can enjoy all styles of backpacking a 20 mile day at a leisurely pace was not going to cut it for me on this trip. Something I always wanted to try while I was thru hiking was the “24 hour” challenge where one tries to hike as far as they can in 24 hours. I was always either already injured or didn’t want to risk getting injured and not be able to walk the last thousand or hundred miles of my thru hike. Now would be the perfect time to try something like that! I am in decent shape from all my day hikes and short trips this summer but certainly not at my peak, however I do at the least, have a solid base of experience to rely upon. The Kettle Crest Trail is only 44 miles long so we attempted a yoyo which also made logistics of getting back to the car easier.

The drive out to Eastern Washington from Montana was very scenic and went by fast. As we crossed the Columbia River around sunset, the sky was pretty hazy and colorful from the nearby wildfires in Spokane. The night before we started, Andrew and I camped at Deer Creek Summit Campground which is right next to the Northern terminus of the KCT and just a few miles south of Canada. The trail is pretty remote in general. We sorted through all the food we bought for the trip at WinCo, packed our bags, and talked stratgey and team logistics for our hike. We were definitely going to stay together on this attempt even when one person wants to call it quits. Overnight I slept in my car and Andrew said he saw lots of heat lightning while he was cowboy camping. More cars than we thought drove through the remote pass at night. Most of them logging trucks.

The next morning we began our attempt at 6:45am. Burned trees, tall bushy brambles, and one of my favorite flowers, fireweed, consumed the first fifteen miles of our hike. Often times I had to push through the tall bushes that were very overgrown and covering the trail. Our splits were right on the relaxed 3mph pace we accounted for while the sky continued to turn dark blue with the threat of rain. I didn’t use my headphones at all until after mile twenty because I wanted the music to be a treat when I needed it. This morning I drank caffeine for the first time in two weeks but I didn’t feel the energy burst at all possibly because it was in the form of a coconut water. Some things we stayed conscious about doing were eating, drinking, and stretching every few miles, necessary things I can get very bad at remembering to do when I’m in my flow with the trail. Mile fifteen was when we saw the first live trees of the hike and things started to get really pretty. The trail was very cruisey with no climb or descent feeling too long or hard until Copper Butte at mile 17  and even then it wasn’t bad, I was just starting to feel the fatigue settling in for the first time. At the top, the rain started coming in and we put on jackets for the first time, it was a light welcoming sprinkle. Going down to Sherman Pass was a breeze as I finally put in my headphones and sweeping views of gentle rolling rocky and grassy buttes started opening up in the hazy blue distance. Eastern Washington was feeling way less desert like than I thought it would be. Perhaps because we were so far north compared to Spokane. We continued past the thirty mile mark to sit down at our last known reliable water source until mile 60 when we would return to the same spot. Here I taped up my feet, drank a classic Ranier beer for the sake of being in the state and ate a freezer burrito, fueling the power hour up the hill towards Snow Peak. My only complaint on pains at this point is that I felt some blisters starting to form from having wet feet and my hamstrings were a little tight. We hit 31 miles in the first ten hours.

The hike up Snow Peak and White Mountain was my favorite part of the trail. It was cruisey and had good views between the conifer tunnels. The trail was rocky and lined in huckleberry bushes. At mile 34 we passed by Snow Peak Cabin and took a break on the sheltered  porch. We expected it to be locked as most nice cabins you find in the woods are and miraculously it was open. Inside were cots, a wood stove, propane and a camp stove with utensils, tea, and everything you would think a person could need. I’ve never seen something like this open. We definitely considered the shelter a factor in our hike from there on out as it would be at the 54 mile mark of our day. This was the forest service cabin I’ve always wanted to stumble across in my travels. We continued on as the sun set. I saw a wildfire in the valley a ridge or two over. It did trigger a panicked response in me that must come from the evacs I had on the PCT last summer. I was a bit worried as I wasn’t expecting to see anything that close but I kept reminding myself that fire activity typically dies down over night, the weather wasn’t windy, and it was a bit dreary with the very light on and off rain all day. Not a danger. I have walked by fires this close before. I stupidly forgot to eat any food or water after our break at 30 miles and at mile 41 I paid the price for it as I suddenly felt like I was going to pass out and became very hypothermic. I knew I needed to solve the problem right away as I didn’t want my hiking partner to have to make decisions for me in that moment. Somehow I pulled it together and made myself stop to lay down for a while in my sleeping bag and try to eat some food. It was a struggle to get anything down at all in that moment and I felt terribly pathetic as I’ve hiked over 40 miles with no problem a few times already. This wasn’t anything too new to me but the sudden hit of my body going into something like shock certainly was. After laying down and getting warmed up, shoving calories in, I was convinced to keep moving. It was almost an hour and a half break. I learned that hot concentrated electrolytes and candied ginger can really do the trick for me. I purposely packed the ginger as I have used it in the past to deal with appetite issues when hiking. After getting through that weak moment and correcting my mistake, the rest of the trail I was cruising until we started to double back. We reached the southern terminus at 11:25 PM. It was an unassuming trail sign that didn’t even say “Kettle Crest Trail”. As we descended the last two miles to the trailhead, the smoke started rolling in. It was the weirdest wildfire smoke I’d ever experienced. It was like fog and smoke at the same time. I couldn’t tell what was ash and what was light rain but my lungs were certainly irritated and the visibility in the red light of my headlamp was very low. I could see the beams of light pouring through pathches in the weird foggy smoke. Luckily I remembered to wear my buff and I used it to cover my mouth and nose as I breathed hard charging back up White Mountain. Now I was finally fighting for the miles a bit going up the hill but I just told myself to keep putting one foot in front of the other because the forest service cabin was only a ten mile return North from the southern terminus and I was determined to get back there.

All of my batteries were running low as the night wore on. My watch died, my headlamp was down to 1/3 as I accidentally ran my high beam too long, and I shared music via Bluetooth headphones with Andrew to conserve my phone power for the map. When we were finally back up higher on White Mountain we got a little break from the thick fog smoke but it continued as we dropped into another small valley on the other side. With four miles left to go, the rain became more intense and suddenly the trail was a small river. How bizzare, it must have rained a ton while we were gone explaining the weird sudden smoke effect. Finally we made it back to the cabin just before 3am splashing through deep puddles the last mile. It had been close to 20 hours since we had started. We both felt that we could have continued but there was no way either one of us wanted to miss the amazing cozy forest service cabin with all this rain that was predicted until the next afternoon. Besides, the only shelter we had was my tarp. It would not have been the most fun night if we didn’t make it back to the car, however the pit toilet at Sherman Pass was always an option too. Everything was soaked but my sleeping bag was dry. Andrew got the wood stove going while I made tea and chicken bullion on the two burner propane stove. The cabin heated up fast and I spent some time stretching and getting my stuff in order to dry before I hit the hay. I was absolutely amazed at my thin alpha direct fleece hoodie from Senchi Designs, it was warm even while it was wet. I didn’t bring a puffy jacket at all on this trip and that thin lightweight technical material really pulled through. There was always some doubt in me about weather that piece of gear was worth it and if it really worked. Turns out, it’s worth every penny. It was a cozy night to spend on a cot in my sleeping bag while the rain storm continued on. It didn’t stop until late the next morning.

We ended up bailing on the yoyo attempt the next day at Sherman Pass. We spent the morning enjoying the cabin while it continued to rain before we hiked the last four miles to the pass where we hitch hiked and intermittently walked a few road miles back to my car. Our first hitch told us that he monitors the rain with a gauge and that it rained one inch last night. Something that hasn’t happened all year. I felt a bit validated. I’ve never quit on a planned hike like that before but I didn’t care to continue another thirty miles into another wet night with my dying headlamp. I felt a little bummed about it but there was really no need for me to be convinced to walk much farther. I still have more hiking to enjoy this week! Overall the Kettle Crest Trail was a really fun experience and I hope I get to return to it one day in the form of a Pacific Northwest Trail thru hiker. I’d highly recommend checking out this fun short hike should travels bring you to Eastern Washington. It was a great way to experience a different part of the state. It was fun to try the 24 hour challenge even though I didn’t make it all the way through it. My body didn’t feel anywhere near as bad as I thought it would. Honestly I probably felt better than some of the long days I’ve hiked in the middle of my thrus on the triple crown trails. There must be something to having rest days and taking care of the body in the front country.

Happy Trails!

-Early Bird