[pct-l] report from Belden

[pcnst@oakapple.net (pcnst@oakapple.net)]

My report of the Sierra season ending Oct 30-31 was premature; now it looks
like the end will come Nov 11-14, e.g.

http://www.wunderground.com/US/CA/Belden.html#WIN

I managed to sew up the remaining parts of section M yesterday and also 
took a look at Chips Creek.    Pictures will be 
http://www.oakapple.net/pcnst/past
in a day or two.

Belden Town Resort actually closes for the winter, but the Belden Post Office
does appear to keep its 20-hour week.    I discovered that you can get
to the Post Office by heading west 0.7 miles along Highway 70's fairly
broad shoulder from the
rest area/trailhead/Belden Town bridge.  OR
you can follow the closed PCT west about a mile with a couple hundred feet
of gratuitous up to a steep power-line dirt road 
that goes down to the Hwy 70 turnout just
east of the Post Office driveway.    If you continue on the PCT west past
that dirt road, you first come to the site of the burned out bridge at Little
Indian Creek (this is the outflow from Indian Springs that the bypass
trail crosses in 6 or 7 miles) and then to a huge down tree across the trail
in a very steep section that I didn't want to bypass.  I think these
items are left for last for repair to discourage equestrians and hikers
from continuing westward on the trail.

However if you do go over that creek and around that down tree (and maybe
some others immediately after it, I didn't check) you find that the Forest
Service has been at work, and all the trees have been cleared from the
trail to the site
of the Williams Cabin and perhaps beyond.    That's as far as I got, and
only the metal parts of the cabin are left - hammer head, shovel head,
pick head, pots and pans - but it's still a nice-looking place to camp
with a pretty spring flowing.     Most of the big trees on the flat
are undamaged.  My understanding is that the real trail
destruction - not a few trees over the trail, but no there there any more -
is further up the canyon, but I guess I won't check that out until
next year.    Somebody on pct-l posted an account of working through those
difficulties earlier this year.

The way to avoid the missing bridge and huge tree, by the way, is after
you pick up your mail at the post office, cross Little Indian Creek on
Hwy 70, and pick up a trail starting uphill from a turnout on the west
side of the creek which switchbacks up to the closed PCT.    The trail 
to Williams Cabin site is in fine shape from here, better than much of the
unburned PCT elsewhere, and views much better than before the fire, I 
imagine.

It wouldn't be Belden without bugs.    I was pleased that they were not
present in the cold shady south side of the canyon, but they were out in 
diminished but recognizable numbers on the sunny north side.     It also
wouldn't be Belden without the railroad, and the UP has taken over the PCT
trailhead just below their tracks as a parking lot for their work crews.

By the way, the Belden cemetery along the Indian Springs trail
may be the only one near the PCT.    It was
used as recently as 1994, and contains the graves of a couple of Beldens,
including the son of the town's founder, and several WW II veterans,
a point worth remembering on November 11.