anyone have any experiences on the west half of the kek trail? doing my first solo hike and am excited about it!

Check out TMan's website lots of good info and pics and if you need more info just contact him. He'll be more than glad to help you out as he is a big trail promoter. I saw Tman

We hiked a big portion around Thomas and down to the old pines loop and back. The main trail is nice, but nothing like a tail outside of the BWCA would be. Easy to follow, but appears to be more used by Moose than people. Some tree down, but not a lot. I would still want at least a map and compass on this trail. The old pines loop is VERY lightly used. So much so that we had to be very careful not to walk off it and at one point did walk off it about a hundred years before realizing it. I wouldn't want to take that with out a GPS, and I don't usually use those. Both campsite were nice, but the southern one was nicer. We checked the toilets to judge use, and one was unused and the other was only used once or twice. This was mid June. It was a great hike and we loved getting back into the woods. Saw tons of moose, deer, bobcat and bear sign, and some amazing trees.

We like it so much, we are headed right back to Fraser and are planning 2 hikes, one in each direction to see even more.

Shouldn't have any trouble, there's a few wet spots but by then you'll be used to wet feet.
Campsite at Medas is really nice and the one on Moyaka recently recieved a good write-up on nice campsites. I prefer Medas, it's larger.
If you have time do the Old Pines loop. It's really not that much farther.

One tip: Don't FILTER the water from Drumstick...BOIL it.
(It will almost instantly clog your filter.)

I am Hiking the Kek with my usual group over Labor day...East to west.
If you would like to join us please plan on doing some mandatory training hikes in and around the Twin Cities in the coming months...