Kachess Ridge 5.9.06

I was really feeling poorly so I thought it best to sweat it out. I was hopeful that the I could make it quite a ways up the Kachess Ridge Trail before it became snowbound. The trail starts a bit more steeply than I was expecting. The first 1000ft of climb went quickly on the good trail. The trail above 3400ft is completely under snow making route finding much more difficult. I was able to follow the trail easily until where I am guessing it crosses Silver Creek. The crossing looked nearly impossible with the deep snow and the high water. There are some bigger logs that would make for a dry crossing but they were still snow covered. I followed the faint tread of those who had gone before me. With the low overnight temps the snow was rock hard and a bit tricky. I was a bit concerned about my downclimb because I didn't have an ice ax with me. It isn't that it overly steep it is more the many trees that would have halted a ten foot slide. I pressed on to around 4200ft and called it a day. I backtracked to around 3300ft where I had seen some tread heading more Westerly. I followed this up to around 3600ft which led me to a nice open area that was sunsoaked. I quite contentedly ate my lunch. I was left with some extra time so on the way out I drove the road that parallels Lake Kachess's eastern shore. I took the branch road 4824 until I was halted with a small snow berm that I am quite sure will be gone within a few days. The road was snowless beyond that point as far as I could see.