I thought this trail-less destination looked promising on the map; a cozy isolated tarn in seemingly expansive subalpine meadow with views toward the Monte Cristo group. Well, not so much. The Boulder Lake trail is within DNR lands outside of Sultan. It is quite brushy and rutted for the first 2 miles with a couple of troublesome blowdowns. The last 2 miles are in Old Growth forest with fine tread. I departed the trail at the lake outlet to attain the east ridge. It was a strenuous thrash, but fully expected. Instead of finding subalpine meadow I saw more cedar scrub and thick blueberry brush under dense tree cover. The only grateful patch of open space was immediately surrounding the tarn just below ridgeline, no views other than trees. Within an hour of reluctantly setting up camp the plague of insects descended. It was apalling, shifts of black flies, gnats, and mosquitos took turns at bloodletting; gnats and blackflies ignored my 95% DEET. I was grateful for the diversion of a black bear in the evening. My ever vigilant dog alerted me to its unseen presence with her usual polite ""woof"". Thirty seconds later I saw the brush rustle at the near edge of our little meadow, a large buck black bear popped out. It saw us, turned and dove back into the scrub, bumbled around the tarn basin and finally left, peaceable enough. My dog always reminds me how dim many of my senses are. Needless to say I packed and bolted the next morning. This is a fine destination only for those thirsting for the feeling of isolation, otherwise there are dozens of better destinations throughout the Cascades.

The Tenas creek road is snowfree, clear of blowdowns and has been re-graded in areas. I don`t know if the family wagon would make it but most vehicles won`t have a problem. The first 3/4 mile is extreemly overgrown with slide alder, making travel slow. At around 3,500 ft solid snow cover is hit, although it only lasts a little bit before becoming snowfree again. After climbing next to a nice waterfall the route reaches a flat at 4,000 ft, the beginning of solid snow for the rest of the trip. This area looks like it would be really pretty when it melts out. Boulder lake still really hasn`t started to thaw out yet and snow pack around the lake is still around 3-4 feet. Great snow conditions and even better views from the summit. I figured I would be the first one up this year but was beat by one day. A party of three came up on 6-21-02 via Huckleberry mountain trail. This peak doesn`t get much visitation, the register was put in back in the summer of 96` and is only 2 1/2 pages. For a more detailed description check out Mike Collins report Nov. 18, 2001, also a better route than the Beckey book.

My group of 4 set out to climb Hurricane Peak. 3.6 miles off the Suiattle River Road, on FS 2660 (Tenas Creek road), we encountered a tree across the road. This tree is about 15"" in diameter, but if cut at the 12"" diameter area, a car could get around it. Alas, I had no saw. Rather than hike the additional 3.5 miles to the Boulder Lake trail, we went elsewhere.

These peaks were climbed via a circle route over about 10 miles and 5,200' of altitude gain. It was drawn up by Stefan F. who lead the climb. The start and endpoint of the hike/climb is the trailhead for Boulder Lake, located at about 3,000' elevation on the Tenas Creek Road. Take I-5 North turning east onto SR 530 through Arlington and Darrington. Continue on the route when it turns north at Darrington. About 800' past the bridge over the Sauk River turn right onto the Suiattle River Road. Go 8.1 miles on this road until turning left onto FS 2660 which is the Tenas Creek Road. After 2.1 miles take the left fork and drive on that road for another 5.1 miles leaving the car in a large parking area on the right. The trailhead bulletin board is not easily visable from the road. The parking area is just before the road crosses Tenas Creek. The Boulder Lake trail is actually an unmaintained fisherman's trail to the lake. It has water coursing down the middle, many logs to climb over, and sometimes tough to follow. It will always be on the left side of the creek though and we followed it to the outflow for the lake. Once at the lake Hurricane Peak will be revealed. The route up is almost opposite the outflow on the farside. It starts as a broad avalanche slope lying to the right of a rocky nose about 150 vertical feet above the lake. We connected with this area by hiking clockwise around the lake, first the west side and then the north. The avalanche slope narrows to a chute that ends at a col. About 200 feet beneath the col angle right and upward travelling briefly through cedars which connect with SSE slopes that lead to the summit. The high reaches are lowangled without difficulty. There are prime views of nearby Chaval and east to Buckindy. Once there we dropped 400' to the east and made a southerly directed traverse to swing clockwise around Point 6222 connecting with the gentle NE ridge of Boulder Peak (6267'). This should not be confused with yet another Boulder Peak about six miles to the north near Granite and Jordon Lakes. The Boulder we climbed has a triangle on the USGS map indicating its prior use as a summit for triangulation by a surveying party. From Boulder we continued on a ridge route which connects with Huckleberry Mountain at 5856'. The low snow pack allowed us to locate the Huckleberry Mountain trail and follow it to about 5,000' where we then regained the Huckleberry Mt ridge. We followed on the rounded ridge and were surprised to find an abandoned trail up there. It is perhaps the old route to the lookout. Our objective was to climb the western terminus of Huckleberry Mountain at about 5,300' Our descent route was to loose altitude on a north ridge until 4,400' where we then hiked NE to return to our cars. Trip started at 7:00AM and ended at 4:45PM.

Unmaintained trail is frequented by fishermen, fishing seemed to be good as we ""caught"" a nice trout with no line at all! (Thanks, mr. fisherman!) Plenty of coarse talus to scramble over, lost the trail fo a while crossing one rockfield. Campsites at Boulder Lake were taken (there are only a few), we hiked up to Pear Lake on the next rise. This involved a more exposed traverse that rattled the nerves of my 10-year-old son, especially on the descent. Air was hot and still all day, bugs came out in force and stayed out. More bugs, still hot and still the 2nd day. Most went for the summit of Boulder Peak, they report some greater exposures and bugs all the way to the top but stunning views make it well worth the climb.