This trip was a backpack of 92 miles, part of which went through an area for which the last trip report is five years old.  This is the Three Fools Creek Trail, which was expected to be "hard to follow" according to the map. This is a fantastic trip, and the Three Fools section is the best part.

The last time I went on a backpack of more than 8 days, I swore swore I would never carry that much food weight again.  So this time I did an experiment using homemade pemmican, which was said to weigh half the normal backpacker ration.Pemmican is a native American food made of dried meat, suet and dried fruit.  I used my favorite recipe for jerky from The One Burner Gourmet, ground up the jerky with a blender, mixed it with melted suet and dried apricots and raisins.  This worked extremely well, I was never hungry and never got sick of it.  Now for the trip...

On Day 1 I walked 12.5 miles on the East Bank Trail to Devil's Junction Camp.  It's an easy trail, through dry, relatively open forest.  The best part is the three and a half mile section in sight of Ross Lake.  The breeze was perfect.  And so was the temperature of the water, it was actually just right for swimming.

On Day 2, I went up the 4400' and seven miles to the beautiful meadow below Devil's Dome.  Trees have been cleared on this route, thankfully, because they weren't when I came through two years ago.  Although some people head for the Dome, I think the meadow is nicer, has a beautiful creek and a good view of Jack Mountain.  There were some bugs in the meadow, but the flies on top of the dome the next day were wicked.

Day 3 was intended to be short so I could take off my pack and climb light.  It was five and a half miles to Devil's Pass.  I got there early.  A couple was sitting there having a break.  They asked me how far was Devil's Dome and I said five miles, but I thought the question was strange, since that's what you have a map for.  Then, when they finally took off, I said where are you going?  They said "Devil's Dome."  I said "That's the wrong trail."  *Glad you were here" they said "that would have been terrible."  I wouldn't mention this, except it was the start of a trend.  I spent the rest of the afternoon climbing up Peak 7270', which was a really nice little climb.  I added a couple of rocks to the cairn on top. 

Day 4 was 10.5 miles to a spring below Holman Peak.  Before I left Devil's Pass in the morning another trail party breezed through.  "Where are you going?"  "Devil's Dome".  "That's the wrong way!"  "Thanks" they said.  (When you go through a pass, always check your map!) The section between Devil's Pass and Holman Pass has the largest downed trees of the route, I'd say about 25-30 trees total.  Holman Pass is where I got on the PCT to go north.  PCT trail conditions were excellent, as expected.  Late in the day I broke out of the trees into a beautiful flowery meadow where the spring is located.  It's a huge campsite for such a tiny spring, but much better than that campsite at Holman Pass.  By day's end, I had passed 4 groups of PNT hikers going south.  I hadn't expected the PCT to be so busy this time of year. 

Day 5 took me to Hopkin's Lake.  PNT hikers told me it was buggy, but that afternoon was very windy and hardly saw a bug all evening.  My trail information said there's no water between the spring and Hopkins Lake, but I saw a pretty good campsite on the south side of Woody Pass with a little creek, not to mention quite a bit of snow in places.  This is a glorious section of trail with expansive views and many flowers.

Day 6 went north on the PCT to Castle Pass, where I took a left on trail 749 (the Three Fools trail) headed toward Big Face Creek.  It took me fifteen minutes at Castle Pass to figure out where the trail was.  Coming north to Castle Pass, the PCT takes a U-turn and the Frosty Pass trail goes straight ahead.  Found two hikers sound asleep at 9:30 am and scouted their campsite looking for the trail junction.  It's slightly north of the campsite - I found the trail before I found the very old sign "Ross Lake".  This trail gets very little usage.  Nevertheless, I had no problems following the trail until late in the day.  There are some downed trees, but they're small and easily stepped over.  This is a very scenic trail, but there's no running water.  I did hit snow by lunch time however.  There are lots of beautiful campsites on the ridges along the way, but only snow is available for water.  I opted not to use these campsites because I intended to explore the upper reaches of Big Face Creek on Day 7, and therefore wanted to reach the bottom of the valley on Day 6.  The tricky part of the day happened when I finally dropped into the Big Face Creek valley.  The trail traverses this valley, losing elevation very gradually at first.  I found a place where a row of about 20 trees decided the trail was the best place to grow despite a huge grassy expanse all around them.  This meadow is more grassy than flowery, but what flowers are lacking in the meadow are more than made up for in the wet gullies.  These gullies are the lushest, densest, brightest vertical gardens I've seen in a long time.  Was having a great day and then the trail petered out.  I assumed at this point that I should continue traversing in a gradual descent until I saw an avalanche chute that went straight to the bottom (where the map indicated the switchbacks were).  My altimeter said I was still too high to start switch-backing down.  I committed a mistake when I didn't go back and look for the trail more carefully in the meadow after I couldn't find it in the next grove of trees.  This is a cardinal mistake of navigation that I know very well not to do, but anyway, since I didn't find the trail again, I descended upstream of the actual trail route.  I was quite worried about the vegetation at the bottom of this valley.  I could tell before I got down what was waiting for me.  Slide alder and willow thickets, salmonberry groves, chest-high ferns and false hellebore and devil's club and you name it.  Was there even going to be a trail to find in such a mess?  Was I even going to be able to find a place to put up a tent?  Spring and Manning said you might be able to find a campsite on a gravel bar in the creek so I fought my way to the creek.  They are usually on the mark, but they had to be kidding!!!!  That creek! Horizontal movement was not quite so difficult that I had crawl on my hands and knees and drag my pack behind me, which mercifully I've only had to do once, but vegetation was what you would call dense.  In the distance I saw some trees, I thought maybe there'd be a space clear enough for a tent so I could look for the trail in the morning.  It took a while to get there, but within seconds of getting into the trees, I saw both large cut logs and the trail.  Just a few more minutes and I found a good campsite and I got set up for the night right before it got dark.  I wasn't sure however, that I wished to explore upstream through that vegetation again the next day.  Time to sleep on it.

Day 7 dawned and I decided I couldn't miss the upper creek valley as it was supposed to be one of the best parts of the trip.  I decided to go back uphill and traverse upstream.  Since I had found the trail, I was just going to follow it back up.  It took less than ten minutes to see this was a problem.  The trail in the woods enters a salmonberry thicket.  I spent half an hour in there before it was clear that trail was not findable.  So, to avoid tall vegetation, I went up through the densest forest, where the understory was knee high.  I found a miserable campsite, probably from some lost soul who couldn't find the trail and despaired of finding a better spot. Then I found the switchbacks at the top.  More beautiful flower gullies, snowfields and waterfalls await in the upper valley.  And at the other side of the pass is lake 6639, much better than Hopkins Lake and it would be my destination for a campsite if I ever came back to the valley.  On the way back to my campsite that night, I went down the switchbacks, successfully, almost to the bottom.  There's a section that's utterly impossible to follow.  Just enter the woods where the going is easier.  There seems to be something weird about the placement of this trail.  One moment, you're descending on excellent tread in forest and then perversely it swings out into the most exuberant avalanche greenery for no apparent reason.  The trail is overall in remarkably good condition for not having any maintenance or much use, but on both sides of the valley it was put in the wrong place.  This is what makes it tricky and it's not for beginners.

Day 8 took me out of the valley and through several "hard to follow" sections ending at Little Fish Camp on Three Fools Peak.  The crossing of Big Face Creek to get out of the valley is on the other side of the small meadow next to the campsite. There's a small cairn at the crossing.  There's still snow in the valley bottom, although the slopes have long since melted out, much of the creek is still covered with snow.  It stopped right upstream from the crossing.  The way is through a mixture of forest and meadow, the forest parts in excellent condition, the meadow parts lush and, yes, difficult to follow.  But not impossible.  To judge by the scat, bears have been doing their fair share of keeping the trail open.  Found one pile of scat with several cougar claws in it, scavenged I assume.  I do believe also that one other human trail party had been through there this year.  The trampled plants and broken branches helped when no other signs were there.  Even when I was sure I had lost the trail, I didn't.  It always reappeared.  But as on the other side, good tread in forest is repeatedly abandoned to go out where it is almost invisible.  Above 5500', the trail is very obvious, even at a distance.  There are sections between the first pass and Freezeout Lake where the tread disappears, but it's not hard at all and there are cairns.  To tell the truth, I was hoping for a little more challenging map and compass work on top.  Route-finding is fun.  After Freezeout Lake comes the long 4200' descent to Little Fish Camp.  I was dreading this part, knowing that the last trail report said there were massive numbers of downed trees.  And guess what,  right before I descended, they had all been cleared out.  I was amazed.  Fresh wood shavings, many blowdowns with 20 trees or more, all taken out.  Now's the time to do this trail!!!  It'll be many years until they clear it again.  When I got down to Little Fish Camp, someone was already there, asleep at 7pm.  I set up camp and when he woke up and discovered me there, his first words were "Where is the trail to Castle Pass?"  He said he had spent two days there looking for the trail to Castle Pass.  For those of you who don't have a map in front of you, there is only one trail through Little Fish Camp.  There is nothing to spend two days searching for... that IS the trail.  He insisted that his map shows that the trail crosses the creek at this spot and he had searched for it repeatedly on the other side of the river.  He never noticed that the "trail" he was on was a spur to the campsite and not the main trail.  I showed him my map.  "The trail to Castle Pass does not cross the creek!"  He said his map says it does.  He pulls out a 8.5 x 11" sheet of paper from a computer printer, colors already bleeding from being wet, and shows it to me.  "You can't get to Castle Pass with a map like that!" I said.  "This is a route with serious route-finding issues. Furthermore, you need to know how to read a map.  That creek is twelve miles, two mountain passes and several thousand feet of elevation gain from here.  Your map, however, does say what my map says, it doesn't cross this creek!"   The guy was planning to do the the Pacific Crest Trail and said he had set up caches of food along the route.  However, when I told him he should be hanging his food from the bears, he said didn't know there were bears in Washington state.  He never even heard of hanging his food.  He was a nice guy, but....    So he cancelled his trip and went back out the next day and I feel really guilty for being so curt and I was left with a really bad feeling.  And I had had such a nice day.

Day 9 and 10 were the walk out.  Trees all clear from Little Fish Camp to Ross Lake.  Appears I got out just in time before the smoke got real bad.  On Day 10, the smoke was so thick at one point you couldn't see the shore on the opposite side of the lake. 

I hiked the Devils Dome loop as a solo-backpacking trip over three days. I originally intended it as a four day, three-night trip but went a little faster than planned. The weather forecast was for hot weather, approaching 100 degrees towards the end of my time. I didn’t find that the heat was really a problem though as it was a little cooler in the hills than in the low country.

Day one’s intended destination was Devil’s Park. Started from the Canyon Creek trailhead off of HWY 20 at 7 am, hoping to avoid the heat of the day. The trail was easy to follow although a bit rough in spots. This trail is not maintained by the forest service but the “roughness” mostly means that the trail is overgrown and crowded in spots. Most of the overgrown portions only come up to the knees however so it did not impede travel much at all. You do consistently gain elevation so expect to earn your miles. While not exceedingly steep, there is no mistaking that you are heading uphill quickly.

The first bit of navigation comes with the intersection of the Jackita Ridge trail and the branch off to Crater Mt. As others have noted, this intersection is not marked and the most obvious trail is the one that leads to Crater Mt. I went about 20 yards down this trail before I got the feeling that I had missed something. I backtracked to the creek and sure enough, found the right trail leading off on the other side of the creek. The trail is clear but unless you actually go down to the water and look for it, you may miss it.

Once you gain the ridge and enter McMillans Park, the beauty of the area really comes alive. You begin to see the mountains and the flowers in the alpine meadows. This is what you hike this trail for. After the steady up hill of the first several miles it feels good to pass through this relatively flat area. There are a lot of mosquitos in this area however so I kept moving to avoid being eaten alive.

I reached the Devils Park shelter at roughly noon. I spent about 40 minutes resting and checking out this area. There is a good water source and the flowers are abundant. I ultimately decided not to stay here for the night, just because I had so much day left. The next several miles of trail gain elevation and take you on to Jackita Ridge. The views continually get better and open up more of the cascades for your viewing pleasure. 

The next several miles are a pleasure to hike. The main difficult spot was the scree field. It is a steep downhill with very loose rock. This area is a slow down no matter how you approach it.

I decided that I was going to try to reach Devils Pass for the night and if I had enough daylight, Devils Dome. Unfortunately the last two miles before Devils Pass are hellish when tackled at the end of the day. It is a very steep, rough downhill and equally steep uphill on the other side. There was a beautiful campsite two miles before Devils Pass and I wish I had stayed there. I reached Devils Pass after 17.5 miles and over 7K of elevation gain and almost 4K of elevation loss. The bugs were really bad and I spent any time before sleep in my tent to avoid them. I did not find any water near Devils Pass but water had been plentiful throughout the day so I had plenty.

Day 2 started at 6 and I was on the trail by 7. The 4 miles or so to Devils Dome are very pretty and the trail takes you right to the edge of some serious drop offs. The trail never feels unsafe but you definitely want to pay attention. Reached Devils dome just after 8. I definitely want to come back in the future and camp a night on top. It has many spots to drop a tent and affords 360 degree views of the cascades.

I spent about 35 minutes on top before heading down the trail. There is a water source just a little ways down from the dome that should be consistent throughout the summer.

The trip down to the valley is a fairly gradual downhill, in fact I wondered at times if I was ever going to get down to the lake. You eventually do though. The views of Jack Mt. continue to change throughout the hike until you eventually say goodbye for good and drop in to the lower trees.

I reached my destination of Rainbow Point campground sometime around 4. The trail to the camp takes you right along Ross Lake and is very nice. A totally different view than the mountains but a nice change. The path at times is cut right out of the rock and is really spectacular. The campground is really nice with three sites that each has two tent sites. I took a swim in the lake and just spent some time relaxing and reading. There were virtually no bugs to speak of which was a welcome change. The temperature in the valley was much warmer than in the hills so it was a very hot sleep.

I hit the trail at 6 the next morning, hoping to be back to the car before noon. The East Bank trail is very flat so I was able make very good time. Most of the trail is through forest so there wasn’t a whole lot of incentive to go slow. The bugs were back once you got a way from the lake so beware. The only elevation gain is over hidden hand pass but it is a very gradual gain and loss.

The worst part of the whole trail was the last mile. From the East Bank trailhead you follow the river, which is beautiful, to the canyon creek trailhead. There is a sign at one point that says this 2.5 miles is maintained by the Skagit Audubon club but I am guessing that they haven’t had a trail day in a while. There are multiple downed trees crossing the trail that you have to fight through. This is one top of crossing through boulders and brush so thick you just have to trust that you are on the trail. Not fun. All good, and bad, things come to an end though and it was a great feeling to see the footbridge signifying the return to where I started.

Overall this is a great trail. Lots of views. Plenty of camping options for whatever length of days you want to hike.

We tried to make reservations at the Park Service in Sedro-Woolley the night before our hike but were told we had to make reservations at the Park Service in Marblemount. We got to the Park Service Saturday at 7:10 a.m. hoping to beat the crowd but there was a long line ahead of us.  When our number finally came up we asked what camping spots were left in the 5 to 12 mile range on the East Bank Trail. One spot was left at the boat in/hike in camp at Rainbow Point so we grabbed it. We reached the trail head at 9:30 a.m., took a lunch break noonish at noisy Roland Creek and pondered how we would cross the creek while we ate.  There was a tree across the creek and my brave friend crossed the creek on the log bridge, I put on my Chacos and waded across.  We ran in to a similar situation at May Creek, otherwise this is a very mellow hike. We ran into a couple of groups who had hiked the Devils Dome Loop, they had seen bears on the trail. We saw a tree that had been stripped of bark but no scat. Rainbow Point is a pretty campground with 3 campsites, all with picnic tables and fire pits. Boaters had the 2 best sites, our campsite was  very windy right in the middle of the point. The wind was non stop the whole time we were there. if you get there early enough the best spot is up closest to the East Bank Trail, it's out of the wind and has a pretty view of the lake.

I went to the Marblemount ranger station the day before our trip at 7:30am, a half hour before they opened, to secure our overnight permits for Desolation camp and Devils creek camp along Ross lake. (I had wanted devils junction camp but it was already taken). It was lucky I got there extra early because there is only 1 campsite available at Desolation and someone showed up 20 minutes after me hoping to get the same permit. I highly recommend getting your permits early!

We had reserved the Ross lake water taxi a few days earlier in the week which would cut off 18 miles of hiking and were all set to take it to Desolation dock leaving at 9:30am on Thursday. We drove 2 cars Thursday morning leaving Lake Stevens at 6am. We parked one car at the Canyon creek trailhead and one car at the Ross lake dam trailhead. This would save us 9 miles since we were taking the water taxi and needed to park at the Ross lake dam trailhead instead of the East bank trailhead where most people park for the Devils dome loop. We hiked down the 1.5 mile Ross lake dam trail to the Ross resort phone and got there a half hour early at 9am. The boat arrived exactly at 9:30 and after a quick 30-45 mins or so we were at Desolation dock. The boat ride is $130 one way and we split the cost with another group that had made the same reservation.

The trail up to Desolation is really well graded. It was very hot out so we took our time and enjoyed the wildflowers which were everywhere. There is only 1 small stream about halfway to the campsite to get water from and it probably disappears later in the year. Bring lots of water! The campsite is melted out and shaded with a very nice view overlooking Ross lake if you walk out a few feet. We set up our tents at camp and napped to wait out the hotter part of the day before heading up to the Desolation peak lookout. There are a few snow patches near the summit but they are easy to boot across. There was a very friendly ranger staying in the lookout. He showed us around the lookout, told us about the history and shared some of his melted snow/water with us. Note: the snow is melting fast up there and you will probably only be able to melt snow for water on the summit for another couple weeks. Again, bring lots of water!

We weren’t bothered by any bugs until around 8pm and then they came out in full force. They hung around until about 9am the next day. The sunrise was beautiful from the desolation campsite. We broke down camp the next day and started back down the trail and along the East bank trail to devils creek campsite. Although this day had minimal elevation gain it felt like the hardest day because it was so hot down low! A 90 degree day. There was no one camping at the lightning creek stock camp so we took advantage of the really nice shoreline there to swim for a couple hours. The water was a nice temperature and there are hundreds of small 1-2 inch fish in the lake along the shoreline. They nibbled lightly at our feet and legs as we swam. It took us all day to go 10 miles to devils creek in the heat. There are 3 campsites and only 1 of them is really nice and overlooks the lake. We got there too late to get it. The access down to the lake isn’t that great either. It’s very rocky and there isn’t much of shoreline. Lightening creek stock camp was much nicer. It also gets windy in the afternoon so we were glad we swam earlier. The bugs weren’t too bad though.

The 3rd day we woke up early and started up the Devils dome trail. The 5000ft of gain was also really well graded although the trail became really overgrown in places and there were lots of blowdowns to hop over. Wildflowers of all sorts were all over the place! There are lots of creeks to get water from and a few creeks and melted out tarns just below the devils dome summit. We didn’t see anyone the whole day and no one else was camping on the dome, not even the mosquitos! We got a really nice melted out campsite with a rock shelter on the summit. There are other flat campsites around the dome but they are all snow covered. We considered going up Bear Skull peak which had some snow but looked really easy but decided against it because of the heat. Instead we lounged around enjoying the flowers and the view.

We started early again the next day, our longest mileage day, down devils dome, over jackita ridge to devils shelter. There were a few snow patches to cross but we could boot across them and we were able to stay on trail the whole time although it was overgrown in places. Be prepared for lots of ups and downs along jackita ridge. There is only 1 short steep 15ft snowy section to traverse on the last part of jackita ridge where our ice axes and microspikes came in handy. If you were going the opposite way and got to this section in the afternoon you could probably just glissade down it. There were 3 other groups that had gone on this section before us though going the opposite direction and they had kicked in really nice steps.

No one was camping at devils shelter when we got there. The best campsites are about .25 miles before or after the shelter. The camping at the actual shelter isn’t that great. The bugs were really bad here but we were able to have a campfire which kept some of them away.

We had a leisurely morning the next day and started down to the canyon creek trail around 8am. We had considered doing Crater mtn but decided to save it for later in the season. The canyon creek trail was also really overgrown in places. The creek crossing on the canyon creek trail looked like it was raging so we switched into camp shoes (croc swiftwater sandals). We went nice and slow and it wasn’t nearly as bad as it looked. We found some wild strawberries on the trail back down, at first for me! There is also a very large blow down at the beginning of the canyon creek trail before the first bridge that was somewhat difficult to get over. We got back to our car at 1pm, picked up our other car and were at Cascade burger by 2pm for burgers and chocolate milkshakes. Approx. 40-45 miles and 13,000ft of elevation gain. Perfect weather all 5 days and a perfect backpacking trip. Go now while the flowers are out!