Bulger hunting was the name of the game this weekend. We set our eyes on doing the ‘Sawtooth Slam’ and knocking out Cooney/Switchback Peak, Martin Peak, and Mount Bigelow.

We started and ended from the Crater Creek trailhead, and man, was that a nice trailhead. The forest road getting up to it was in good condition (A prius owner at the trailhead said so!). Upon arriving, we found a large parking lot/camping area with a nice restroom.

Without knowing too much about snow conditions, we opted to bring our skis, hoping for a few good descents and some efficient skinning here and there (long story short, they probably weren’t worth bringing).

We took off about 4:30am and headed up the Eagle Lakes Trail, then took a left to follow the Martin Creek Trail. About a mile after that intersection, you hit I believe Eagle Creek. This creek was flowing pretty wide and there was no way to get across without getting wet. We took our shoes off and waded in the chilly, calf-deep water across the creek. Luckily the rocks underneath were soft and it was an overall, uneventful crossing.

We continued to head towards Cooney Lake.  Along the way, there were a handful of blowdowns that we had to cross. Having skis a-framed meant most required us to assume some interesting positions as we bear crawled on all 4s underneath or limbo’d to prevent our skis from getting caught.  We eventually encountered enough snow to put our skis/skins on at about 6800ft. From there, we were able to skin about 95% of the distance. We headed up to the col above Cooney Lake, and then booted up to the summit of Switchback. Those 9.5mi took us about 5hours oddly. We thought we were moving quickly… but guess not.

After a brief break for chicken bacon ranch burritos, I started to boot down the ridge towards Martin Peak. My partner Harvey opted to put skis on and ski some slivers of snow on the east ridge. We met about halfway up the ridge towards Martin and reached our second summit about 1.5 hours later. Overall, the ridge scramble felt safe and un-exposed.

Getting down from Martin was probably the most interesting part of the day. We headed down the west side through some less than ideal steep scree. We peered down a little gully but figured it wasn’t worth descending there, instead opting to climb back up a little bit and head north along the west side of Martin, where we knew it wasn’t as steep.  Here we finally found a little consistent snow and skied 300 vert (lol) to the col. 

We kept ski boots on and booted up to the top of the col and were STOKED to see consistent snow to Boiling Lake. Another 300 vert of skiing in the books! We ditched our skis here at the intersection and then headed up towards Hoodoo Pass. Here there was 60-70% snow coverage. We tried to follow the trail as best as possible. Post holing galore…

Eventually we started to weave more uphill towards Bigelow. We were able to hop across some small boulders, find little foot paths, and make our way up pretty quickly. Kinda felt like hiking up Asguard.. Maybe a little less steep. It was about 3 hours after the summit of Martin. With snow and dense clouds moving in, we no longer had much visibility. We lingered for 3-5 mins and decided to head back down. Then began the long, 10mi slog back to the car.

We picked up our ski gear back at Boiling Lake, and headed up the pass, hoping we’d see snow on the backside. Alas, there was very minimal snow. We kept the skis a-framed and took off down the trail. Again, a handful of blow-downs had to be gracefully navigated, but otherwise it was an uneventful and enjoyable trip back to the Crater Creek campground.

About 14 hours round trip. 24mi and ~7500 feet of gain. 

https://www.strava.com/activities/5420756604

Did a loop of Foggy Dew Ridge -> Cooney Lake -> Merchants Basin -> out and back to Sunrise Lake -> Foggy Dew Creek trail. The rest of the trails/locations have been covered pretty well recently so I won't detail those, but thought an updated Foggy Dew Ridge report would be welcomed as the last one is over a year old.

In short, it's in great condition. No blow downs or major obstacles. Not sure if we benefited from recent trail maintenance, an increase in traffic this year, following behind new motorbike tracks, or a combination of the three, but we found most of it extremely easy to follow. As other reports have mentioned, the actual trail is off from the mapped trail, but we rarely needed to look at a map anyways. There was maybe a half mile to mile where the trail was extremely faded in the bear grass and we lost it for a few minutes, but we were able to find it again after backtracking ~100 feet. It is pretty relentless in its' climbing and most of it was in the trees, but it was worth it to have total solitude after we saw quite a few motorbikes zipping up the road to the Foggy Dew Creek trail when we were getting started. Also has some golden larches right now!

We started out at the Foggy Dew trailhead this morning around 8:30. The trail up to Merchant Basin is in great shape. The bushes along the trail are in various shades of red and gold. When you reach the basin, you a thrust into a larch wonderland. We took the spur to Sunrise Lake, and were blown away by the sheer number of larches. I’d say 75% of them are at their peak currently, and the remaining 25% aren’t far behind them. 

After a long lunch at the lake, we headed down from the lake, and up the Sawtooth Ridge trail to Conney Lake. We were blown away by the number of larches at Sunrise Lake, but it honestly has nothing on Cooney Lake. The trail down to the lake passes through hundreds of larch trees, and they are almost all completely golden. It was beyond beautiful. We hung out at the lake for a little while, and then took the Martin Lakes trail back down to connect with the Foggy Dew trail, and then back to the trailhead. 

Total mileage was somewhere around 19, with 6,000ft of gain, for the day. We saw maybe 10 people (3 on dirt bikes, 3 on mountain bikes, 2 hikers, and 2 next to a tent at Cooney Lake) the entire day. We also saw three bears. The smoke was pretty bad, but the larches made us ignore it as much as we could. 

A quick report to give an update on the larches. Upper Eagle and Boiling Lakes have some larches turning, but they are just getting started there. There are a number of larch groves you'll walk through between Boiling Lake and the top of Angel Staircase that are at or near peak. Cooney Lake had the highest concentration of larches at or near peak - so pretty! I did a very quick side trip to Lower Martin Lake, where the larches are also turning and the ground cover is red.

If you get a three day weather window in the near future, it's a great time for this hike!

Hiked to directly to Cooney Lake from the Foggy Dew Trailhead and stayed one night.  Trailhead is easy to reach, with only a few miles of well-maintained gravel road.  There's a toilet at the trailhead as well.   

Hike to the lake is on the steep side, with a slow, fairly constant ascent.  Trail is extremely dusty at this point. Many of the campsites are also dusty, and the night we stayed it was quite windy, which covered us and our tents with dust.  It was also very cool.  Probably under 40 degrees at night, which, when combined with the strong winds, made it uncomfortable to do anything but retire to our tents early.    

Although it was Saturday, the campsites by the lake were mostly empty.  Only a couple other parties were camping the night we stayed.  There are many campsites there. 

As others have observed, there is a pit toilet available, near the horse camp on the north side of the lake.  I point this out because we found human waste under some large rocks very near some of the campsites on the north end of the lake, which was unpleasant. Please take advantage of the toilet.

On Sunday, we took a day hike to the top of the pass, and then scrambled to the top of Cooney/Switchback Peak (directly over the lake), which is pretty easy to do.  We then scrambled down the ridge, ultimately winding up at Martin Peak.  Views are unmatched all along the ridge, and the scrambling was not difficult - in many cases there is a faded boot trail.  Watch for some cairns as well in the rocky area just south of Martin Peak.  We did a loop by finding our way back down to the lake directly from the saddle south of Martin Peak - it's easy to see where to go.  All in, the day trip was only about 4 miles.  Completely worthwhile on a clear day.

We had planned on staying a second night but decided to hike out early given how uncomfortable the chill wind was during the afternoon.  I went out by completing the lollipop loop, hiking back up to the pass and then down past Merchant Basin and Sunrise lake, which is also very much worth seeing.  That part of the hike is all out in the open (unlike the hike to Cooney, which is mostly under cover until the end.