Beautiful trail! The loop requires navigation skills, bushwhacking, off-trail travel, and scrambling. We planned our route in advance, which helped a lot. There is no established trail for most of the time, and there are a lot of spur trails that could be confusing.  Helmet needed for scrambling bits, even just on the loop itself. Lots of scree and talus.

Wonderful views of Glacier Peak, the Entiat Range, and Rainier all around.  Marmots everywhere.  Flowers everywhere.  Meadows and amazing vistas everywhere.  The trip exceeded our expectations.  

We went up toward carne first, ending with the descent out of Leroy.  Camped about 6 miles in, about 1.2 miles away from the base of Maude.  Didn't see a soul on day 1.  Saw about 3 parties on day 2, until we got to the Phelps junction.   Then we saw lots of people.  

Summiting Maude requires crampons and ice axe. Maude and ice lakes is the only area with snow.

7FJ is full of loose rock.  We ran out of food, and knowing we had a long descent of over 8 more miles, had to call it about 1000 feet from the summit.  Next time!  

6000 foot gain and 17 miles.  

Fun detail- the earthquake happened while we camped.  We had no idea.  However later in the morning as we hiked towards Maude, we heard a ton of what seemed to be glacial booms/aftershocks.  I used my InReach to contact family and they told me about the quake.  Crazy!  

From the Phelphs Creek trailhead I hiked a loop of Leroy basin, Maude, Ice Lakes, Carne High Route, Carne Mountain.

The road is pretty awful after Little Giant Pass. Many very rocky sections that can kill your tires and deep gullies on the last section that are tricky to navigate. The original creation of the gullies could have been avoided if water was managed better. There is no evidence of work on better drainage, so they're just going to get deeper. I'm not sure what the plan is here. Why have a road open at all if it is this neglected? Maybe it serves as a quota? Anyway, end of rant.

I started hiking at 5am to catch the sunrise at elevation in the Leroy basin.

The trail up to the Leroy basin was easy to follow with a headlamp, and even beyond the campsites the trail is pretty good until the infamous gully in the basin there. There is a little bit of a bootpath cut in the gully currently, so it is not that hard. After crossing the gully you need to go straight up for a bit first, which was a bit confusing to me.

The last section to the gap between Maude and Freezer (where you first see Ice Lakes) I didn't follow the correct route and ended up climbing steeper loose rock to the gap. On Flickr (see link below) I included a screenshot of the GPS track, which shows my route on the way down that worked better. There appears to be a more established trail there. I used microspikes for the loose rock, which helped a little.

The route up Maude was mostly straightforward. The section to regain the ridge (see track) is a bit steep loose rock (again microspikes helped). Once back on the ridge itself there is no more loose rock, so it becomes a lot easier. Views from Maude are amazing. Go on a clear day! There is a little snow at the summit right now.

I didn't explore Ice Lakes too much due to time constraints. It looks pretty, but really needs more time to enjoy it.

To get to the Carne High Route, I traversed just below 7400ft to maintain elevation to the next gap (east of Pt 7425, see GPS). This worked okay but was a bit sketchy and had some loose rock coming down that could be dangerous. I met a party who just did this and they were not too happy about having done this route. Maybe descending further and then climbing back up is wiser.

The Carne high route is a little hard to follow until the long traverse to Carne mountain (after descending the gap east of Pt 7108). There is no clear trail and virtually no cairns, so it would be a good idea to study a GPS track to avoid too much trouble with route finding.

I enjoyed the sunset in the Carne Basin and then quickly descended to the trailhead. I was back at the car at 7pm.

Overall, this clockwise loop worked really well. Climbing Maude while still fresh is a good idea, and the earlier summit compared to counter clockwise makes for better views (sun otherwise behind Glacier Peak). Also it's nice to not have to walk the flat trail the last hour or so.

Got to the Phelps Creek Trailhead via the Trinity Sign postings off of Chiawawa road. The road up to the phelps creek road junction are passable by all vehicles but the rest of the distance to the trailhead should be done in a higher clearence vehicle as my toyota Yaris was almost bottoming out in a lot of places. We arrived at the trailhead around 230 PM on Saturday then headed out with our group of 6 by 3pm. The first three miles are a joke in terms of elevation gain but things change when you hit the Leroy Creek junction (which we did around 415). This is a great place to take a breather or cache up on water as the stream was running strong. 

Once on Leroy, the incline is pretty rough and hard to get used to from the flat section so I would advise taking your time. We hiked from the base, up to the Leroy basin where there are at least 3-5 camping spots laid out within the area for those who want to setup camp for the night like we did. At 7:30, 30 minutes after we arrived, we finally started eating our food and went to bed around 8:30 with a 6:15 wake up time to head up Mt. Maude. We, lollygagged as usual and left our camp at 8:15 AM and reached the south face Saddle around 9:30 for a quick stop and snack, which is a great spot to do so and possible camp if thats allowed there. 

From here, it took us another hour and half to reach the base of the final approach, near Ice Lakes. The scree fields here had 3 or 4 small patches of snow, making for another dusty section to navigate. This final approach is pretty brutal on the knees as my gps calculated something to the effect of 1,700' of elevation gain over the course of 1.5 miles. It took us from 10:30 to 12 to reach the top but we finally made it with the sun coming out and clouds moving about. We soaked in the views with a quick lunch for half an hour before starting back down. The views are some of the most exposed and panoramic views that I've discovered, with a front and center seat to Glacier Peak in all its glory.

From the peak back down to Ice Lakes, we ran out of water and made good use of a couple small puddles at the base of the scree to filter out some much needed water. We showed up at the Saddle at 2PM and made it back to camp by 3:15, which was faster than climbing but still slow for us and behind schedule. We packed up and left our camp at 4 and reached the bottom of the steep elevation (Leroy Creek/Basin Trail) section with much joy at 5:15. As mentioned, the last three miles were flat but still painful when speed walking with a full overnight pack back to the car. We hit the car at 6:30 and gladly left the trails behind us for beers in Leavenworth.

The parking lot was full when we left on our trip but we only encountered 3 groups of about 3 people each, making for a very quiet and secluded hiking experience. My group did not train in the slightest for this climb, so we did suffer from the calf burning uphill this climb most definitely advertises and offers. We did see one relatively fit guy who did the entire thing as a day climb so it is definitely doable.

Hopefully I provided enough details and if not, I can try my best to answer any questions you might still have.

Weekend trip to scramble Seven Fingered Jack and Maude was great. It was a little smoky on Saturday morning, then a little foggy for our afternoon scramble of 7FJ, but that only made the peak more moody and mysterious. Sunday morning was clear and the views from Maude were glorious.

First off A few helpful hints:

steal a GPX file from someone that posted their trip report on Peakbagger.com and put that in your GPS, it helps when the trail disappears. I would post mine but my GPS track looks the satellite was tracking a wandering mountain goat.

I think the trail is suppose to be somewhere around 14 miles, but I somehow stretched it out to 17 (see above mountain goat comment).

Snow was non-existent, until the permanent snowfield and one little cut in the earth at section 2. I would bring a traction device for the snowfield, but maybe not necessary.

Well it wouldn't be a Phelps Creek Trail head trip report without mention of the road to the trail head...Its really not so bad if you think of it more of an ORV trail than a road.

I made it my mission to make the summit of Mt Maude in a day and back home for supper.

I'd break this hike in 5 sections:

Section 1: TH to Leroy Basin (7:30am)

Got to the trail head at 4:30am. Phleps creek trail is awesome as always. Arrived at Leroy Creek at hour 2, Follow the Leroy Creek Trail sign after fording it or playing a fun game of balance on the narrow log. Take that right, it takes you up the creek at a very very unforgiving ascent. one of the signs on the trail mentions it's not maintained, but it is in fairly good condition and very easy to follow, although does have a few downed trees. It can get fairly brushy towards the top, but really not too bad. I got to Leroy Basin by 7:30am, and what a sight to behold. Amazing views of Maude and 7FJ (7 finger Jack). the basin itself has plenty of room for tents and what not, but please, stick to maintained campsites to prevent trampling the meadow. This spot would be absolutely perfect for base camp, but bring bug spray, you'll need it. If your crazy enough to make this a day hike, rest here a bit, the trail ahead gets gnarly.

Section 2: Leroy Basin to Obvious Col (9am)

After breaking for a snack head back on the trail, if you pass a water fall about 50yd from you your on the right trail. Now, this section is the hardest to follow and is almost non existent, basically your traversing the side of the ridge/mountain, following the cliff side to reach an obvious saddle, it'll become obvious when you break out of the woods for the first time. you really have to be decent at route finding for this part, there's only a handful of cairns in the rock fields and nothing but faint boot paths in the woods. In this section I encountered my first snow, but all of it is avoidable except this one large cut into the earth that from what I was told was gouged by water or snow in 2010 (see photo), although not very deep I was struggling to find footing to get up the dusty sides. there does seem to be some form of water moving underneath, so just be aware of any snow bridges and probe across. once you traverse all the way across you begin to climb up again at the last second to reach the col, then you go up and to the left while slightly continuing to traverse around.

 Section 3: Col to Col (9:45am)

From the col the trail becomes more apparent and it'll traverse around and with a slight incline, basically this brings you to the higher col, where you can finally see the summit and Ice lakes. (see photo)

This part is nice and easy as well as scenic. Amazing views of Glacier peak, Buck Mountain, you can even see Stuart if you look hard enough. 

Your mostly on rocks, but they have been laid out somewhat by the nature of people and animals hiking it.

Section 4: Glacier/Snowfield (11am-ish)

If your anything like me once you hit the high col your morale will be at the all time low, you'll say to yourself "how can I possibly have this much more to go?" Personally I stood there at the top of the col looking at the summit for a half hour debating if I even wanted to continue and just turn around and go home, after all I had tequila waiting for me. 

So once you're on top of the col you'll have the snowfield to cross then the scramble to the summit. The snowfield looks steep at first glance, but its really not too bad. The snow was nice and hard going up to the summit, but coming down was mushy and soft. I personally am not too comfortable on glaciers or snowfields due to lack of experience with them, so I am really hesitant to glissade unless I absolutely know the place I'm glissading, but looked doable. I donned on my crampons and Ice ax and heading across. I was aiming for the furthest point of the snowfield, as the chutes I should've went up had some cornices ready to fall. Once crossed I left my crampons and ice ax there and headed up the summit. I think crampons are a little overkill for this snowfield, but my crampons are lighter than my micro spikes, so why not.

Section 5: Scramble to Summit (12:30pm)

Once you've crossed the snowfield you have to scramble a bit up a sort of chute, nothing great, one of the few class 3 spots on the route. It's pretty easy to find a route up, but once your up you have a whole bunch of scree until you reach the top. This part was probably the most frustrating to hike up but easiest to climb down. there's really no foot path, not since the high col, just choose a route and up is the direction you want. I finally reached the summit by 12:30am. and the views were incredible, as expected. There is a small geocache box up there, however its broken, so next person to go up has to bring a small weather proof container, hey bring a note pad and a pencil for it too, it only had a small plastic coin, so I threw my business card in there as well. If you do bring the notepad up put my name on there as completing it, 7/19/2018 P.Tomas.

Amazingly the whole way up and down I didn't see a single soul, unless you count the 7 or 8 deer and tons of marmots I saw.

Now to go down, I got back to my car at 730pm-ish. I think the worst part of going down was Leroy creek trail, oh man. Have fun.