Today’s trip was another in the “get out in the woods” series of hikes. I decided to head down Baty Butte – the plan was to try and make it to the Powerlines. I was successful, but it was a difficult trip.

We headed out a bit late and got to the trailhead about 10:30 or so. I was really surprised when the truck said it was 42 degrees! On the first of July! That was crazy…. We were also pretty much in the clouds most of the day. I took this photo from our parking spot of Baty Butte in the clouds:

We suited up and headed up to the trailhead. It was cold and wet. The brush was dripping wet all over the place. I put on my rain jacket mostly for warmth but it also kept my upper body dry. We made pretty quick progress up the connector trail (a piece of the old South Fork Mountain trail) and got to the spot where the trail heads south. A lot of work was done on this trail last year and it is holding up well. There were a couple of new logs in the area where the dozer line was cut but those got cut out as well. I think the first downed log was at the beginning of the relatively steep uphill section past the dozer line.

We continued up the trail – there are a number of smaller logs in the section of trail along the bluff, but most of these are pretty easy to get over. As you head up the ridge, when the trail gets along the ridge there are pockets of new logs down – a few of them are a bit more difficult to get over, but nothing terribly crazy. We soon got to the first hillside meadow, which was still in the clouds unfortunately:

We continued up the trail, going in and out of the clouds. We got to one of the very interesting areas on the trail – it is a corridor just down from the ridge that has no trees – I’ve always found that fascinating – why didn’t any trees grow in this area? A bit farther up, we got to the spot where I think there used to be a trail junction at one point – lots of blazes right here:

Continuing up the trail, we eventually got to the high spot of the trail – a spot where there used to be a helispot – you can see the old yellow ribbon in a few spots if you look carefully:

In this area were some really pretty lillies that were blooming:

And what I think is Penstemon:

It was pretty foggy here – we were definitely in the clouds at this point. After heading thru that high point, the trail starts a gradual descent as it continues to follow the ridge. Somewhere along here, where the trail follows just below the ridge on the east side, there was several new logs down, which created one of the more difficult to traverse spots:

But what was interesting was that someone has come thru here and done a little bit of clearing, cutting the branches off the logs:

A bit farther up the trail it starts a steeper descent and goes down a few switchbacks until it gets to an area that has always been a challenge. It gets steeper in here and then switchbacks into the “green area” (what I call it) that is filled with Thimbleberry and other brush which makes it tough to get thru.

I was shocked when I got to the saddle at the top of the steep descent before the green area. Last winter this area got absolutely hammered. I couldn’t even count how many trees were down (some of them very large) – most of them were uprooted. This picture shows some of the carnage – the trail heads just to the left of the big rootball in the middle of the photo:

It was very difficult to get thru here. I carefully made my way over some of the larger logs – Thor went WAY around all of this. As I was getting over some of the logs, I took another photo of the carnage – the trail is just over the big log at the bottom but it is hard to see due to all the debris:

We eventually got thru all the carnage and finally got down to the “green area”. It wasn’t too bad. This was looking back up thru the “green area”:

After this significant impediment the trail condition improved. From here to the powerlines there were very few new logs down, and the ones that were there were pretty easy to get over.

The trail is pretty level in this spot, mostly following a contour line – it goes up or down a little bit but is mostly level. After a bit, the trail enters an old thin/cut area. The tread in here isn’t too bad in most of the spots but is a bit brushy in places – but it isn’t too hard to follow. This is a segment of trail in this cut/thin area:

After the cut, the trail goes back into the woods and soon arrives at the powerline corridor:

This was our turnaround spot. We had a quick, late lunch here. It was still pretty overcast, but you could tell that the clouds were beginning to burn off a little bit.

While I was getting packed up, Thor decided to just sit – it always cracks me up when he does this. I call it “surveying his kingdom”:

After that, we packed up and headed back up the trail. When we got to the “green area” and the area with all the downed logs, we basically bypassed all the downed logs and went straight uphill. I was a bit concerned with getting thru all that but going back up was actually easier than coming down was – mostly because we just went around it all.

After getting back up that steep section, things improved for the rest of the way back. At some point, I decided to take a picture of some scat on the trail:

There was a LOT of scat on the trail. I’m sure I had to have seen at least 20 piles on the trail, all relatively fresh – the animals seem to like this trail.

We worked our way back to the high point and then started the descent, although there was one more area where we had to climb back up a bit – one of the drawbacks of a ridgetop trail – it goes up and down quite a bit. During that last ascent, the sun started breaking thru the clouds – I almost missed the photo it was so quick:

We worked our way up that last ascent and then the rest of the trip was all downhill. At one point we got a nice view – the clouds continued to slowly clear and we got a decent view of Sisi and Olallie Buttes as well as Schreiner and Knob Peaks

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful – we got back to the truck a bit before 3:00 and headed home. It was an interesting, although rather exhausting day on a beautiful old trail. The only thing that could have made it better was for the weather to have been a bit clearer. It was a great way to start the month of July!