Chewuch (Twentymile) and Hilltop Rim Roadless Area

Index to the other Roadless areas in the Western Okanogan National Forest

Selected campfire stories from this area from Lost and Forgotten - A Trail Guide to Roadless Area Hikes and Vistas in Western Okanogan County

Chewuch-Twentymile - RA 243 west part, Hilltop RA No. 293

This web page also refers to Hilltop Rim RA, which is Roadless Area No. 293 on the map below, on the east boundary of the Chewuch Roadless area, and west of the Loomis State Forest.

Twentymile Roadless Area (also referred to in part as "Long Swamp", "Long Draw" or "The Meadows") lies astride the northern tier of the Okanogan Range on a broad, rolling plateau which is divided from the North Cascades by the Chewuch River Valley. Because of the great amount of mountain grinding that went on during the Pleistocene, the soils have been scraped off all the summits and stuccoed into the valleys. The rounded summits are rocky and dry, and the valleys are buried in deep glacial drift. The undulating mantle of glacial overburden is punctuated regularly by seeping water, which ponds up in the basins forming extensive willow / sedge wetlands more characteristic of the boreal north. The resemblance is enforced by the regular appearance of other northern denizens: moose, lynx, even lemmings (really--northern bog lemmings do live in Thirtymile Meadows). Due to the topography, frost and clouds accumulate here, bringing freezing nights and thunderstorms during the summer.

The Twentymile roadless area is easily accessed on foot via a number of trails. Most of these are relicts of bygone sheep herding driveways, which experienced a boom following the 1929 fire that burned much of this area and the rest of the territory north to Canada. The lodgepole trees that came in following that fire are grown up now, and ready for another fire, however in riparian areas one may find older trees missed by the fire, and more often predominated by Engelmann spruce (Picea engelmanii) or subalpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa). As these trees get older, their branches become densely festooned with dark strands of Bryoria lichens that grows so thickly the forests seem to have black foliage. These lichens were formerly used as an important food source for the Thompson, Ashnola and Okanogan tribes, who baked them in underground pits up to three days until they softened and became edible.

Roadless Area Map of this area (data from Pacific Biodiversity Institute).