Blowdown HELL in North Idaho 20 miles Backpacking the Coeur d'Alene Mountains

Well, hello. Our shuttle just left. We are here at the McGee Bear Trail. We are in for three days, two nights. I got Jason and Jeremiah and Timber with me. So we're doing a point to point. We just got dropped off here. My truck's over at Independence Creek. We'll get there in a few days. And we could be in for a bit of an adventure on this one. We're expecting a lot of blowdown. I saw a ton of it coming in. We'll see how it goes, but it's going to be an adventure. Let's get it started. All week we had been telling ourselves how bad the blowdown could be. We were mentally prepared for the worst. As we started down the trail, we could see that there had been some fresh cut trees. I wasn't expecting that on this section of the trail. You see, motorcycles are not allowed on this trail. And I thought that that made it very unlikely that anyone would clear it. The trail had been good so far, and we could tell that some horses had come through and cut some of the trees. We were feeling optimistic about the trail as we set up our camp that night. Maybe it wouldn't be as bad as we thought. Well, good morning, morning day two here on Bear Creek. We're on the McGee Bear Trail. Great night last night, a lot of fun. And so far, there's been blowdown on the trail, but nothing too bad. It's looked like maybe some horses have come through recently this year. And I wouldn't say they're clearing the trail, but they're cutting some small stuff, so we've been able to get through. Timber's been able to get through no problem. But today's the big day. Got probably a 1,500 to 1,800 foot climb to get up on top of McGee Peak. And then I think it's gonna be mostly downhill from there for the rest of the trip. We'll try to get down to Independence Creek tonight. Get moving here in a little bit. Day two, on our way. Almost immediately out of camp, we could tell that the horses didn't make it any farther. The blowdown was getting thicker and tougher to get through. My God, that's a first. We took a break and watered up at the last stream crossing we would have until we got down to Independence Creek. The blowdowns were getting more intense, but so far we'd been able to get through them all right. Now, we had one more push to the top. We finally gained the ridge, but that didn't mean the climbing was over. Coming into this trip, I thought that the worst part of the trail for blowdowns might be the section from McGee to the peak. And even though we did hit plenty of blowdown along there, it wasn't too bad. I was expecting that the trail from the peak down to the road and then the road walk itself would be fairly blowdown free. But we got a taste of what was to come right away. You're just making sure your mind's right. My whole life, you hurt my whole life. Well, we've hit the road finally, and it looks like it's still gonna be blowdown city. We're starting to get into some more intense blowdowns on this side. But now we got about four miles down to Independence Creek where we will camp for the night. By this time, we'd already traversed over 100 blowdowns, and they were starting to get really bad. The good news was on the road, timber could go under most of them without much trouble, it would be a little more tricky for us. After battling our way down the road walk, we came out into an amazing campsite with water nearby and a beautiful meadow. Felt like quite a reward after the work we had put in today to get here, and it was time to enjoy it. Well, good morning. It's morning day three, going home day. What a day yesterday. Turned out to be a lot more than I thought it was gonna be. The blowdowns got pretty bad, especially when we hit the road. We made it though, and then got down here and found this amazing camp. We're just short of Independence Creek. We're gonna hit it first thing here and have to cross. It's gonna be very cold. The water is very cold, but I'm guessing seven, eight miles out today. Hopefully the blowdown is tolerable. It took us all day to get down here yesterday. So we're hoping to get out of here a little sooner than that today. Guess we'll see. Get packed up here and start hitting the trail. It wasn't long after we hit the Independence Creek trail that we got our first taste of the blowdown. Automatically, it was tougher now because we were on a single track trail. And it was harder for Timber to find a way through. And then we ran into a wall of blowdown five feet high. There was no way to get Timber through that, so we improvised. We've bailed out onto the creek now. Ooh, that is cold! This has been a tough go today. We're going really slow. It is tough to navigate. Timber's wearing down. I don't even think we're halfway. Well, we got a little clear trail here. We're really thankful for that. We'll just keep pushing through till we get there. There's only one way out. Let's go, buddy! We were starting to hit more and more sections of clear trail. Through the blowdown, we were barely making a mile an hour, so it was nice to be able to walk for a bit. We're earning it all the way back. Well, I think we're under a mile back to the truck. Hopefully, we just got some clean walking. Oh, last couple days have been hard. Timber's wearing down. We're all wearing down. But making the final push to the truck. And there's beer in the truck. Lord knows I could use one. Let's finish this. I'm not sure that I have ever gone through so much blowdown on one trip. It was hundreds of trees. But we all knew that coming into it, then I have to say we kept our spirits high the whole time. Goes to show what a good mental attitude will do for you. I thought we might get an adventure on this trip, and we surely did. It's what we signed up for. And even though this was tough, I know we'll sign up to do it all again.