Hawk Mountain and Baty Butte

I took a trip up to Hawk Mountain on Labor day.  The trail was in great shape, no downed logs I can remember, and the tread was in fine shape.  Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate, so Mt Jefferson was hidden all day.  We got a little bit of rain, a little bit of mist and a little bit of sun.  The cabin is in great shape, it was painted since the last time I was there, but a group of Trail Advocates (I read the register in the cabin).  I also learned that the cabin was built in 1937 to replace an old log cabin on the site.  So that little cabin is 72 years old!  It is in exceedingly good shape for a structure built that long ago.  The only real problem is that one corner appears to be settling, so the cupboards in that corner won't close.

Yesterday I decided to try the Baty Butte trail.  What a BEAUTIFUL day!  And a BEAUTIFUL trail!  I was expecting it to be a lot rougher than it was.  The trail was in very good shape.  A few sections were brushed in a bit (mostly rhodies vine maple and huckleberries), which I tried to help with, but there were only a couple of small trees across the trail, and the tread was great.  Easy to follow almost the entire way.  There is a fair amount of flagging in the areas that need it.  I went from the 7010-160 trailhead, which was easy to find.  I wouldn't really recommend that road for cars, however.  Both the upper section of 7010 and the 160 spur have some pretty rough, washed out areas that would be difficult in a car.  The description of where the trail is on the page here is perfect.  I didn't have to search at all.  We went all the way to skookum lake.  Even though there were a LOT of people out yesterday, we didn't see a soul until we got to skookum lake and found about 15 people.  There were people camped there, and another group waiting for them to leave to camp.  I was really surprised.  Saw the big slide into the lake, and the lake has a lot of logs in it now.

That trail is absolutely amazing.  The views are incredible, all over the place.  I wanted to do the southern part of the trail, but we were running low on water, and since there isn't much in the way of water along that trail, I figured that would have to wait until another day.  I will be coming back to explore south as far as I can, though.

It looks like they might actually be working on road 63 now, as it is blocked right after the road 70 turnoff with a backhoe.  I didn't walk up the road to see, but I hope that is the case.