Washington Backcountry Discovery Route

[Gold Cobra]

At NWFest this last year, XJourney arrived at camp late on Thursday night after taking the Washington Backcountry Discovery Route to Long Meadow. After talking to him about it, I knew I had to do it. I had wanted to do it solo so I could be cool like Hans, but the idea of camping by myself just didn't appeal to me. Ben (BPB) informed me he was going to be laid off for a few days in late August, so I planned on running it during his plant shutdown. Ben and I invited a few other people too. The only rule if you wanted to come was you had to follow me since I planned on driving it with the top down, but since we were leaving on a Wednesday and not planning on being home until Sunday, not many people could come along. The only two who could make it was Ben's carpool buddy Ryan, and Dan (StreetPirate). After one planning meeting where all we did was drink and watch TV, we planned on meeting up Wednesday morning in Stevenson at 9am. Aside from that the plan was basically to stick to a route a guy ran in 2007, because he did it in 4 days, and that was how long we had to do it (Link).

Day One

We met up at 9am Wednesday and had breakfast at Subway.

From there we stopped in Carson to top off before hitting gravel. Fuel was $4.09.

After we topped off it was just a mile or so to Bear Creek Rd where we turned off main roads to spend the rest of the day in the Gifford Pinchot, primarily on gravel roads.

At the first intersection Ben (our navigator) stopped to check his maps. I also took the top down on Gold Cobra.

We stopped to check out a lava flow that ran parallel to road

Goose Lake

Just outside Forhorn Lakes the 6035 was closed due to a washout, Ben called and confirmed that with the FS. We decided to stop here and have lunch and drop tire pressure to 20 psi for comforts sake. We were going to have to backtrack about 7 miles and find another way around.

A cool dried creek bed, I'm not sure I'd call this a bridge though

A small washout

It was overcast at times Wednesday but the weather was really nice, Mt Adams in the bacground

There are a lot of rules if you are going to be picking wild Huckleberries.

What the hard-body was packing under the hood

 

[Gold Cobra]

Around 4:30pm we hit Takhlakh Lake, to bad it was overcast.

Shortly after Takhlakh Lake the road became pretty rough, and super tight. It was pin-striping our rigs for a good 3 miles.

A bridge over a small creek was the end of the super narrow section

We then took the 21 which dropped us right onto Hwy 12 where we headed about a mile or so Packwood for fuel. Fuel was $4.19, and we had done 130 miles at this point.

From there we drove a couple miles to FS-45 and took a spur off of 4501 where we literally stumbled across the coolest campsite. There was a very steep, loose, and rutted hill climb to get to where we camped. The three of us were able to make it up in low range no problem though.

Setting up camp around 7pm

The view from camp at sunset.

And that concludes day one.

 

[Gold Cobra]

Day Two

We packed up and left camp around 10am. The view from Camp in the morning

From there we went back down to Hwy 12 where we would have to pound pavement to White Pass but shortly before White Pass there was a 20 minute delay for road construction.

I took the opportunity to make lunch.

Just after Rimrock Lake we turned onto Bethel Ridge Road where we immediately climbed onto the ridgeline of the cascades for some amazing views.

Tieton Dam

The FS roads between Hwy 12 and the 410 were very poorly marked, as were they on our maps, and on the GPS. We hit a dead end or two, and may have added a few unnecessary miles in the Bethel Ridge and Cow Puncher Ridge section, but it was worth it. This section of driving was just amazing with some incredible views.

A few of the roads were marked as 4x4 trails, some weren't marked at all, and some were marked with numbers that didn't match our FS or DNR maps or our GPS.

Ben doing his thing.

While we encountered a couple sections of washboard, Dan and Ryan will both tell you this section of road was the worst. I was hauling ass over it, and enjoying it, so Ben and I both agree tire size is what was key here. It's kind of hard to tell from the picture but the rocks on this road are baseball and softball sized.

We finally popped out on Nile Rd just off the 410, from all the steep switchbacks and the aggressive driving I was down to 1/2 tank. So we made the trek a few miles to Whistling Jacks for fuel. Fuel was only $4.17!

About 4:45pm we came to a closed gate on Manastash Ridge. It was a hookey looking barbed wire and stick gate with no signage at all. There were several sets of tire tracks going through it, so we decided it was probably a livestock fence, so we opened it, and drove through and closed it behind us.

At 6pm the 3310 was closed so we back tracked a few hundred yards to jump on the 3311 which turned out to be a pretty cool 4x4 trail with a really neat bridge over a wetland area, although it was dry for us.

A quick section where we all had to put it in four wheel to make it around a short detour around some culvert work.

At 7pm because of a closure on the 3330 we decided to take a spur rd just off the 3330 that on both our maps and the GPS didn't connect up to the 45 but it came really close. We figured if it didn't then we'd set up camp. We came to the end of it on the GPS, and we were looking at a really steep hill climp. Ryan and I walked it for a good 60 yards and it just kept going. We decided to drive up and it would hopefully come to a clearing to set up camp, or connect to the 45. Well at the top it did connect to the 45, and boy were we happy.

Just after that we setup camp for the night on a ridge overlooking Cle Elum our goal for day two.

And that concludes day two.

 

[Gold Cobra]

Day Three

We rolled out of camp around 10am, and proceeded to hit what seemed like 200 switchbacks downhill towards Cle Elum. We hit the Ranger station at 10:45am to pick up a map of our next leg of the journey. Then we went to Safeway for supplies and Taco Bell for lunch, then fueled up for $3.97. 290 miles to this point. Dan and Ryan were only down for two days, and Ryan was having trouble with his running lights so he wanted to get home before dark, so the two of them headed home and Ben and I continued on.

A cabin just before we crossed the 97.

Another cool cabin in the Liberty area

That one had a hand carved sign from the FS

That Libery-Beehive section of road was pretty rough at times so that slowed our progress down a little, it was also pretty heavily wooded most of the time to I didn't take to many pictures, but it was a really fun drive.

Over lunch the four of us joked that without Dan and Ryan to keep us in check, things were going to start to get weird between me and Ben. Well, they were right. Just 4 hours after we said goodbye to them Ben and I are taking a bath together.

Beehive Reservoir, luckily the place was empty so there were no witnesses. We used a biodegradable soap so as to not pollute the lake. According to the bottle it works on hair, body, animals, dishes, and clothes. How convenient.

We both felt amazing having washed all the dust off, and continued on with new found energy.

At 4pm we found the 7100 gate closed, so we would have to end up taking another road to Wenatchee then pavement to Leavenworth. We had dinner at Heidleburger in Leavenworth, not very good, then fueled up for $4.19 a gallon then got back on the gravel toward Lake Chelan.

We hit Lake Chelan at dusk, just a little behind schedule so we decided to drive for another 45 minutes or so to make up some time for tomorrows leg. Well, I ended up having a blast flying down those roads at night. I ended up driving for a good 3-4 hours just flying, because I was having such a good time pre-running at night.

We dropped into Winthrop around 12:30am with less than 1/4 tank thanks to my full throttle nighttime assault. Well everything there was closed. So we drove about 15 miles to Mazama where they thankfully had modern 24 hour pumps. I filled up for $4.29. We then drove up to another amazing camping spot just outside Mazama where with the full moon and no campfire Ben and I setup camp about 1:15 am then sat overlooking the valley with the light of a full moon for a few minutes before heading to bed.

That concludes Day Three.

 

[Gold Cobra]

Day Four

The view we had in the morning.

We had camp packed up and were headed down the trail toward Winthrop by 9am and in Winthrop by 9:15.

Winthrop is a very cool town with a very old feeling to it on the outside, but it's basically a giant tourist gift shop. We had planned on eating breakfast there, but the place was packed and seeing a few menus in the windows of the few places, we decided we didn't want to pay $20 for breakfast and headed to Pacos Tacos which showed up on the GPS in Twisp, a few miles away. Well, Paco doesn't open until 11:30 so we went to Antlers Saloon and Cafe, where we waited about 30 minutes for our food because they were so busy. It was very good however and I'd recommend the place to anyone.

From there we took FS roads from Winthrop to Conconully where quads and side by sides are road legal. I was at about 3/4 tank but decided I would top off for safety sake. They had antiquated pumps at the only fuel station so I went inside and had them put $15 on the only Regular pump. When I went back out and finally looked at the price I was shocked to see it was $4.85 a gallon.

From there we jumped right back on FS roads and into the area consumed by the Tripod Fire in 2006

Shortly after Baldy Pass (EL 6,300 ft) we made a wrong turn because the GPS had mislabeled FS 37 as FS 39 so we ended up making a giant loop back around Baldy Pass. We headed back to a campground where we talked with Johnny Bowhunter who let us take a look at his map, and he also pointed us in the right direction.

 

[Gold Cobra]

After exiting the Tripod Fire area we were only a few miles from the border. Ben found a road on the maps that would take us basically to the border. We headed up to the Cold Springs trailhead where we would take a "Jeep Trail" to the border, well about 100 yards into the trail it was closed.

On the way down from there I almost hit two black bears. A mother and a cub ran out of the woods right in front of me, ran along the road for about 40 ft then back into the woods. Exciting to see, but we couldn't get a picture in time.

So we proceeded to follow the path the guy took in 07 to Copaka Rd. There were a few cool abandon buildings along the way.

It's gated off about 3/4 of a mile from the border. We actually past US Border Patrol when we were headed toward the gate and he waved at us. We debated on whether or not he'd be waiting for us to come back down the road.

After that we headed to the crossing at Nighthawk, a limited hours border crossing. A few hundred yards from the official crossing was in international boundary marker. So we stopped there to take a few pictures.

The Official crossing down the road.

It was 6pm on day four and 761 total miles to that point.

Ben and I both agree it was the best trip we've ever been on. The amazing scenery, the open top, the wildlife we saw. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday we saw almost no one on the roads we traveled on. The only reason I think we saw people out there on Saturday was because it was labor day weekend. Even then, seeing another car could be hours apart. There really isn't anything about the trip that I regret, or I feel went badly. I'm glad we didn't have everything planned to the T, because parts of it were really an adventure.

Big thanks to Ben for navigating on the fly.

 

[Gigantor]

Absolutely AWESOME! This is why I love WA State!

 

[streetpirate]

pulling my pics off the camera now...

 

[90xjblue]

that looks like a pretty amazing trip man! Thanks alot for sharing! I would like to do something like this one day.

 

[streetpirate]

Darren making pizza

Bunch of drunk guys around a campfire playing with long exposure

Ben #2 shining a flashlight on Ben #1's ass. just what the world needs, another BPB...

Gold cobra on top of the world

and the Sex Palace on top of the world

View from camp #1 in the morning

 

[josefxj97]

definitely need to put this on my to do list....great report thanks for sharing. looks like an awesome trip...on a side note, i will be hunting up around Concunully this month.

 

[jonesinxj]

Great report and cool pics!!! Good to hear whistlin jacks is only at 415 a gallon!!

 

[nightfoam]

Nice report, glad to see it worked out okay. I've got lots of questions but I'll save them for offline.

 

[NW-ZJ-SCOTT]

Nice report, glad to see it worked out okay. I've got lots of questions but I'll save them for offline.

x2

 

[LJ dude]

Good report! Ive been wanting to do this trip for a while now.

 

[NW99XJ]

Amazing pics guys, thanks for sharing!

 

[The_Big_E]

WOW, nice pictures and way cool trip! I recognize a few of those areas. Did you happen to record a GPS route? I'm gonna have to see if we can duplicate this trip as this is exactly the type of thing I had in mind when I built my Jeep.

Thanks!

 

[kndrewa]

rad!

 

[XJCasper]

Nice write-up

 

[kenny811]

Great trip report, awesome pictures. I would love to do a trip like this!!