Kibbie Ridge Trail

[kpeter]

I hiked Kibbie Ridge Trail to Boundary and Little Bear Lakes this past week, May 2021

I had no problems following the trail, however, there were more than 50 deadfall and greenfall across it, some in strategic places that required considerable effort and a little route-finding to get around.

The trail would be impassable to horses at the moment, and the only horse sign I saw looked to be more than a year old. The sawn logs were mostly greyed out which makes me wonder if there was any maintenance last year. Obviously there has been none this year, yet. Trail crews usually go out late in the summer.

The side trail to the Sachse Springs snow survey cabin is completely obliterated, but there is a spacious camp up there.

As usual for early season, long stretches of the trail nearing Styx Pass were flooded.

The bootpath up from Lord Meadow to Boundary Lake was well ducked. The bootpath down the western shore of Boundary Lake to Little Bear was intermittently marked. Finding the way up and over from Boundary to Little Bear was only slightly tricky, but there were misleading ducks in numerous places.

I cross countried down from the Kibbe Ridge trail the Kibbie Lake on the way out. That cross-x route is now horrible. I have done it before, but the brush has grown considerably in the burn zones and I had to thrash through manzanita and whitethorn for hundreds of yards. I no longer can recommend that route.

The trail from Kibbie to Shingle Springs also had deadfall. Only in one spot, when a cluster of deadfall blew down as jackstraw over the trail on a brushy hillside, was it a problem--mainly route finding around it through the brush.

[SSSdave]

Since the fires, have traced out a possible tortured route to avoid most brush and log piles from Kibbie to the ridge trail. Before the fires that route was unpleasant with marshy areas plus brush. Now the horrible thorny whitethorn has expanded to the extent just rambling up or down the ridge is certain to otherwise extract bloody flesh from the creature.

(mouse select to expand)

Kibbie2ridge1.jpg

Magnified view of crux area. By zooming in further on GE one will more easily see how it moves through open spots on the line that herein look questionable. If I did this route would be carrying these printed out photos. Being able to camp the first night at Kibbie Lake provides a more interesting itinerary than atop the dry burned ridge. Note later this week as an easy warm up trip, 2 of us are just going to Kibbie over 3 days.

Kibbie2ridge2.jpg