McMillan Creek

Bushwhacking Hell

The key to making your way up McMillan Creek is not to walk in the woods, but to actually walk along the bank and in the water crossing back and forth as you hit the high banks as the river turns. Otherwise you end up crawling through red alder and devils club so thick you can walk across the branches and never touch the ground. I still have thrashed legs from the thorns and one stuck in each thumb.

Ever since I heard of the Pickets and did a bit of research and saw pictures, I have dreamed of doing a Pickets traverse. There are no established or maintained trails approaching or through the region, only climbers approaches and routes. I didn't brush up on any background reading prior to going to Ross Lake with the family, but I planned on camping at Big Beaver and did a little bit of prep with the Topo! software and decided on McMillan Creek.

Saturday morning I woke at 4:30 am and got dressed. As I headed through Big Beaver campground there was 4 or 5 people wandering around on the trail, I guess thats the time of the morning when bladders are full and can't wait till morning. I ended up coming across one lady who was squatting on the trail doing her business. I mumbled an apology and hurried to get to the trail. I hustled along in the dark, my head lamp illuminating the rooty path and the giant silhouettes of the huge cedars. Miles passed as the sky slowly lightened, gray sky was lined with patches of blue and it was unclear which way the weather was going to break.

I passed 39 mile camp and never did see 10 mile shelter. I got to the point on the map where I knew I was approaching the confluence of McMillan and Big Beaver creek. I could hear Big Beaver get louder as the walls of the canyon narrowed and the trail began climbing. I decided to cross the creek above the entry of McMillan creek and at some point I turned left and headed down the hillside towards Big Beaver Creek. I was surprised to find still a lot of water coming down, at least 3 foot plus, it was a little too narrow and too swift so I made my way down stream looking for a place where the creek bed widens, the water spreads is not quite so deep. A couple hundred yards I found such a place with large rocks that I could grab onto. I debated crossing in wet shoes with traction or carrying my shoes which would end with dry feet but hurt as I cross the rocks. I opted to leave my shoes on and I made my way across anchoring each foot in a stable place before taking the next step. Safely on the other side I found an smallish cedar around 9 inches in diameter and cut a blaze with my knife on the opposite side so that when I returned I'd be able to re-find my crossing point.

At this point I was on the west side of Big Beaver Creek and the north side of McMillan. I made my way southwest towards McMillan creek. The forest at this point was fairly wide open with only downed logs and huckleberry bushes in the undergrowth, no devil's club or pricklys to deal with yet, so it was easy going. 500 yards or so and I came to the bank of McMillan Creek. At this point I was still thinking that the best route was to walk in the woods following the creek up. I waded through McMillan to the far side and made my way up a dry side channel that paralleled the main creek. I quickly ran into a briar of devils club, so named because its 1/2 inch stalk is covered in thorns as are its huge leaves. Its weed like in that the stalks snake in and out of adjacent vegetation forming an impenetrable barrier of pain. This drove me back to McMillan Creek where I hit up on the strategy of walking along the banks of the creek and crossing when I ran into a high bank where the creek turned.

While this kept my feet wet it worked well as the fastest way to travel up the creek. Unfortunately several natural barriers made it impossible to always follow this strategy. There were a couple of humongous log jams and one very large boulder cluster with fast rapids that required me to head off trail and make my war around. Each time I did I regretted it as I pawed my way through thick red alder intermixed with devils club that scratched and tore at my skin and poked me (I still have thorns in my thumbs). Finally I came upon an unnamed creek, the first inlet into McMillan Creek on the western side, flowing from a steep gully on the south side of Elephant Butte. I scrambled up the dry jumble of rocks left over from the melt, hoping to get high enough to get above the trees and brush so that I could get a glimpse up into McMillan cirque. I was surprised to see a big pile of dusty snow partway up, and could see all the way up the gully to the ridge line pass below Elephant Butte. As wall of brush still obstructed my view up McMillan so I climbed through some very thorny shrubs and finally could peer back up in the valley carved by McMillan Creek.

The views were gorgeous, though not spectacular because after examining the map it was clear that there was a lot more creek left to get up into the real foothills of the Pickets. After returning and reading more and studying the map you definitely don't want to attempt traveling very far up creeks or valleys, but want to gain a high ridge line as soon as possible. While I do think that McMillan Creek would be viable if you went up the first creek that flows in on the south (the one I scrambled up), you could make it all the way to the ridge line and then on up to Elephant Butte and approach from there. The only difficulty would be crossing Big Beaver, as any other time would require a log to get safely across. After reading a lot of trip reports the standard route people take to the Pickets up Big Beaver is to continue on up Big Beaver Creek past McMillan Creek to the next western creek, called Access Creek, but not named on any map I've seen. Though the crossing of Big Beaver is still not clear in my head. Next year I am hankering on doing a Pickets traverse up Big Beaver and out Whatcom Pass. I can hardly wait.

Lessons Learned

• Bring some leather gloves for going through Devils Club
• Possibly bring a pair of loppers :)
  
• wear tear resistant long sleeve shirt
• wear long pants, which is a bummer since your spending so much time in the water as well. I liked being in shorts for wading but the Devils Club thrashed my legs
• bring poles, duh
• bring some flaggers tape for marking the return path
• wear a pair of Keen sandals for walking in the river