The night before, we had had a long group discussion about our exit strategy. Typical of this group, they did not choose the ease route or the one with the most knowns. It was a unanimous decision to bump camp down McCalla Creek and take the most adventurous route possible back to the Chamberlain Air Strip. We pack up our bags, grabbed the tools and worked our way down to a new camp.
After a half day’s work, we finished clearing the trail to the McCoy Cutoff Trail and accomplished our third week’s goal. We were treated to some afternoon and evening rain showers which offered a little relief from the heat.
The next morning, we were up and at em early. It was a cool misting morning, an amazing contrast to the afternoons. Due to the unknowns we faced getting back to the airstrip, we had allotted two days to make the 10 mile transfer.
I think we were all glad to be done with the work portion of the trip and excited to have a little adventure today.
We started our trek on Dave’s Cutoff up to the ridge.
It all went fairly well to the ridge, now we needed to start down the decent to Chamberlain Creek not knowing what we would find. Normally, this would not necessarily be a big deal but when loaded with full packs and lots of tools it definitely increases the level of difficulty.
The Chamberlain Creek Basin is beautiful although a little smokey.
Down we go! It was apparent the crew was anxious to get back to the airstrip as it became every man or woman for themself.
As we suspected and hoped, the creek crossing was not too bad.
Once we made the crossing, we turned up the Chamberlain Creek Trail and started heading west. Luckily the forest service trail crew based at the Chamberlain Guard Station had cleared the trail a couple days earlier. It was interesting to walk along this trail as I had been part of a crew that cleared it a couple years ago. Check out those trip reports here.
Things had been going much better than expected so at lunch, we reloaded on fluids and decided to make a push all the way back to the airstrip.
It was a long 6 mile fairly hot push back to the airstrip.
We had arrived back to relative civilization a day early so it would allow us to gather our stashed extra gear from Stonebraker Ranch and the Guard Station and have a leisurely day to relax before heading to the real world.
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