This is a continuation of my 10 day Washington trip that was in the freakishly warm month of October. I drove to Sahara Creek after leaving Margaret McKenny. To read about the first part of the trip click on this link. Margaret McKenny
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| On the Lower Elkspur Trail at Sahara Creek. |
My GPS took me slightly past the entrance, there is not much along the highway, just an easy to miss, small brown sign that says Nicholson Horse Trails. A third name for this area is Elbe Hills, and this state forest is DNR land, which means it is free to park and camp, with a Discover Pass.
This is a big camp, and when I drove in on a Monday there were quite a few people there, although none of them with horses. I drove around the entire big loop but did not want to be jammed in next to the RVers or hunters, so I picked spot #10 which is across from the day use area.
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| Site #10 at Sahara Creek Horse Camp. |
This is a really nice camp and it was obviously made with a lot of attention to detail for horse people. There are 30 spots all together, but 8 of them are in a separate loop that is gated and has signs saying it can be reserved. While I was there, there were some hunters camped in the smaller loop, which has a bathroom, and two frost free water spigots you can attach a hose to.
The larger camp loop is set up so that on the left all of the sites are pull through, and on the right they are back- in. There are high line posts arranged in a row all around the entire perimeter of the camp so if you are in a back-in spot they are directly behind you, but if you are in a pull through, they are across the camp loop road. At the end of the loop there are some more smaller spots, as well next to the day use area, which is where I ended up. There are two bathrooms, a mounting ramp, lots of mounting blocks, hitching rails, and two manure bins. There are two frost free water spigots you can attach a hose to, on either end of the camp, and one behind a large picnic pavilion. Some of the sites, but not all, are reserved for horse people M-F until 8:00pm. Apparently you can only stay 7 days in a 30 day period. Not sure how they can tell who's actually abiding by that...? Pretty much any sized rig could fit into the majority of the spots. Update: Just recently things have changed and camping in Sahara Creek Campground will now be by RESERVATION ONLY. Reservations will be made by emailing: saharacreekcampreservations@gmail.com. See the bottom of the blog for all the info.
I had pretty bad cell service in camp, I was able to sporadically get texts, sometimes just walking a short distance away from my truck, sometimes in my truck, but never in my trailer.
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| The day use area at Sahara Creek. |
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| High lines line the perimeter of camp. |
I had a map from the DNR website and I knew ahead of time that some sections of the trails were closed. So the first day I started on the Lower Elkspur Trail, continuing to the bottom of Rosie's Hill, where the trail started to look a little less used. I turned around, climbed back up the steep hill and took the Buck Crossing Trail up to the Upper Elkspur Trail. The trail system consists of the Lower and Upper Elkspur and then there are quite a few ways to do long or short loops with other trails and /or old roads that are interspersed between the two.
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| On the Lower Elkspur Trail. |
I came across the Valley View Picnic Area, which has a bathroom, and then as I was on the Upper Elkspur, on a switchback section heading back downhill, and almost at Beaver Creek Trailhead, I ran into a couple of people on horseback. They told me exactly where the trail was closed but I knew I could ride the 8 Road about a mile, and get back onto the trail past the closed section. They said the closure had really screwed up their ride, they had been forced to turn around, since they did not have shoes on for road riding. The trail sections that are closed are because of logging, so they are impassable, for now. At one point I encountered a hunter stealthily creeping along looking for his prey, I said "hello" and scared the crap out of him, I guess a large horse coming right towards him escaped his notice!
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| At the Valley View Picnic Area on the Buck Crossing Trail. |
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| On the Buck Crossing Trail. |
I actually wasn't sure I even wanted to try to ride again the next day, with all of the closures, but I managed to figure out a way to only retrace my steps a little bit, and do another loop.
I started on Lower Elkspur again, but this time I went up Doe Crossing, (yes, most of these trails are named after elk), to Holly Connector Trail, which clearly was named after me, but from there I had to back track because Fawn Crossing had a closure, then I got back on 8 Road from the day before, and once I was back at Beaver Creek Trailhead, I took the 6 Road that parallels the Upper Elkspur until I could get onto the Anvil Loop. Sound complicated? Not really, the DNR website has a map and all of the junctions are well marked.
The Anvil Loop was nice and a little more open, so I was finally able to get an unobstructed view of Mt. Rainier. On the way back I went down the Bull Run Trail and coincidentally ran into a bull elk hanging out amongst the foliage.
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| Big Bridge on the Lower Elkspur Trail. |
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| The Holly Connector Trail. |
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| On the Anvil Loop. |
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| Rainier views from the Anvil Loop. |
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| My horse hears the elk. |
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| Bull Run Trail. |
That concluded my visit to Sahara Creek, doing two rides of just over 7 hours each, I covered everything on the east side. There is another trailhead on the west side of the Elbe Hills that a person could trailer over to, but since there were even more trail closures over there, it wasn't worth the effort on this visit. Instead I drove over to Rock Creek Horse Camp on my way home, to do a long loop, that I had not done on my previous visit last year. I have already written a blog about that camp, so I will update it with the new info.
GPS COORDINATES TO SAHARA CREEK
New Sahara Creek rules:
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