Yellow Jacket, Mar 4th

One of the key things to be able to do this route is that there’s a lot of snow on the ground, otherwise, you can’t go too far. The reason is this section of the mountain has a lot of streams. Most of them are smaller so crossing them is not an issue but there are a couple of larger streams that a good snow bridge makes them crossable in the winter. Just for that reason, I stopped going to Yellow Jacket as the last couple of years the snow level has been very low. This time though, we got a good dump so it was time to revisit the route. Weather was looking kind of iffy with forecast stating we would just have a cloud cover but precipitation. At higher elevations, this usually means a pretty closed grey sky. We started from the Snow Bunny Sno-Park following the Timberline East Leg road. From the get go we knew we would have excellent snow conditions so right from the start it was looking like a good day. We got to a fork in the road and looking at the map it seems like we needed to turn left. Shortly after that my brain started telling me we were not going in the right direction, something was off. So, rather than turning around and heading back to the fork, I decided to take the group off trail and connect with the other trail. Little did I know we were going to find a beautiful creek with no easy way to cross.

Luckily, we were pretty close to the road, so we backtracked just a bit and got to the road were a bridge took us to the other side of the creek. Shortly after we found the turn-off I was looking for. From that point on, we were off the road and on the trail following the very faint blue diamonds. Not to long after that we got to a crossing I had forgotten about. It’s a pretty descent shallow creek that you could cross almost without getting your feet wet or by plowing on top of a log that goes across it. Sky marks got just to the creek but no further, so nobody had crossed in quite some time. For whatever reason I was not feeling brave to clear the path for everyone else, but we were lucky another brave soul went ahead and did just that. From there on, we were braking new tracks, oh the joy. We went thru numerous ups and downs and creeks and openings…. It was a winter paradise.

At some of the openings we got a bit of clearer skies which gave the whole thing a very special glow. It was just fantastic and everyone was having a blast even though I knew we still had to pass the traverse. At some point, after we had gained significant elevation, the route made a right turn right before a traverse that opens to amazing views to the Salmon River below us. It’s a section that can scare people off a bit as it’s pretty steep fall if you were to slip. One of the guys in the group was pretty tired by then and did a horrible face plant as he was trying to grab on a tree for balance and the tree just bent in front of him. I felt bad for him and decided to stay close just in case. Towards the end of the ridge we came to a tight turn right that goes steeply down to the river to a potential crossing. WE had to explore a bit to find a good spot were snow was deep enough that we would have a descent bridge. After crossing it was just a steep uphill to the viewpoint I had setup as a destination for the day.

After enjoying a nice break and food with good views it was time to retrace our steps. The first part was a lot of fun as we raced down the slop but then we had to work our way out of the valley and back up to the ridge. It was hard, and we had to really kick with out snowshoes to get some traction. Then we just retraced our steps the way we came. I had to hang in the back as the guy that did the face plant was going a bit slower and we had several creeks to cross. He was tired, and his legs were not responding right. It didn’t help much that he was not paying attention to what I was telling him to avoid getting in trouble. That proved right at a particular crossing where he doubted himself allowing me to get close. When he finally went for it, he slipped and felt forward sliding back into the creek. From the other side I saw it almost in slow motion, so I just braced myself and grabbed him by the backpack to prevent him from completely falling on the water. One of the guys in front saw the action and rushed to the creek so he grabbed him from the other side, but he didn’t have a good grip. So, I jumped to the other side and we made a quick human chain to pull him out. He was now wet and tired, not a good combination but the worse was done so it was just a slow march back to the cars.

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