10.5 miles of hiking • 1000' elevation gain • 2 nights
Left the city late Friday to camp out for an early morning bushwhack down into Salmon River Meadows which is a wilderness established in 2009 southeast of Trillium Lake. We parked at the Frog Lake trailhead, hiked across Highway 26 by headlamp, and ducked into the woods. We hiked for an hour or so until we found relatively flat ground to make a camp spot. We cleared a spot for the tarp and collected wood for a small fire while it drizzled.
In the morning, we headed due west cross-country toward the meadow, roughly 800' below. Unfortunately, the hill down to the meadow was much steeper than expected and the brush got very thick. Ultimately, we scrapped the plan and hiked back out to the car to go to Badger Creek Wilderness.
We got to Badger Creek at noon and kept our fly rods out while we hiked. Plenty of small, native rainbow trout came to hand, including two nine inch males that became dinner.
Weather was gray almost the entire time, but was an extremely fun trip.
