I went without a night's sleep so as to be on Boulder Butte, 7372', for the sunrise. And it was worth nearly six hours of hiking in the dark to see the growing morning light and alpenglow on the peaks around the Stehekin Valley and Lake Chelan. The trail was easy to follow with a head lamp, and a near full moon added to the illumination. Since this was an old route to a former lookout, the grade was almost constant but long--about 16.5 miles roundtrip from my starting point in Stehekin, with a whopping 6300' of gain. In places the trail was overgrown and thin with several blowdowns, but many had been cleared up to around 4000'. For a hiker who is mostly on summits in the glare of early afternoon, this was a treat. And I had the mountain to myself for the whole trip, 10.5 hours. From Purple Pass, be sure to add the extra half mile to the top of Boulder Butte for the big views. A memorable night and day!

We took the first boat on Saturday morning from Chelan to Stehekin. We arrived around 11 am at Stehekin, and took a Backcountry permit at the Golden West Visitor Center. We camped at Juanita Lake, and hiked down on Sunday. Purple Creek trailhead is located behind the Visitor Center near Stehekin Landing. The trail is in good condition: no water or snow on the trail, some trees are over but it's easy to pass over. Note that this trail is hot and dry, and so you will need to carry (lots of) water. There are 2 water sources: one at Purple Creek a couple miles up the trail, and the next one is at Juanita Lake. The Juanita Lake area is almost completely free of snow (only few patches out-of the trail). I would strongly recommend to hike the last half mile to Boulder Butte: the views are really worth it!

Trail has been mostly cleared of blowdowns - you'll experience a few between 4,000 feet in elevation and maybe 5,500. Someone has done a ton of work clearing the worst blowdowns between 2,000' and 4,000'. Trail is badly eroded in places, which makes the footing a little dangerous in places, a challenge made worse by sections where the trail is badly overgrown. Right now, the trail is nearly bone-dry. Bring a lot of water. Other than that, the trail is in great shape. Since there's no trail profile for this hike, I'll provide a brief overview: Purple Pass is a long, steady climb from the Stehekin Landing to a high pass more than a mile above Lake Chelan. Climbing 5,700 feet in roughly 8 miles, this is a long trail, but it rewards strong hikers with stunning views and an alpine basin of larch and pine. On a clear day, you get views both up valley and down lake and sneak peeks of Glacier Peak, Gun Barrel Peak, Fernow, Bonanza, McGregor and countless other mountains.

After savoring our last night in civilization in Chelan eating great pizza (Local Myth Pizza - highly recommended) and listening to a live acoustic performance down the road, the two of us set out on the Lady of the Lake Friday morning. Day 1 After a longer than usual boat ride due to an electrical issue and only one running engine, we walked the plank off the front of the boat at the Prince Creek drop off. Another group of 4 or 5 got off at the same stop, but they set out along the Lakeshore Trail. After taking a few pictures of people on the boat taking pictures of us, we started up the hill on the Prince Creek trail at about noon, elevation 1100 ft. After walking a couple hundred feet south from the boat drop off, the trail turned up the drainage, and didn't stop for a while. The first water source was the crossing of Prince Creek at about 4 miles, where the bridge has been washed away. Bugs weren't an issue (aside from the deafening sound of millions of grasshoppers) until the creek crossing, where flies began to swarm. The earth bridge embankments were still visible and a pile of timbers was stacked on one side, but the gap between was too far to jump. The creek itself was not terribly deep and could be waded with the help of poles and some caution, but the size of the boulders and channel width make it obvious the crossing could be much more hazardous even a week or two prior to our hike. About 100 feet downstream from the original crossing someone chopped a tree down across the creek. The ~12" diameter tree sits about 6-8 feet above the rushing creek and has a branch and smaller log tied together as a railing about 2 feet above the footing. The skinny log and low railing make this an interesting, but doable, crossing. After the crossing, the trail continues uphill on the southern side of Prince Creek, switchbacking a few times and staying just out of view of the creek until the crossing of the East Fork and the intersection of the trail to Cub Lake and Boiling Lake to the southeast at about 7 miles. This is an easy crossing, plenty of boulders to hop, or easy to wade as I did to cool off the feet. There is a camp just before the crossing that looked pretty nice. We decided to push on the last 2 to 2.5 miles to the Prince Creek shelter. These last 2 miles seemed to take forever, with the hope of the shelter "just around the next corner" repeated several times. Starting at noon and hiking with the sun on our backs the whole way up had us pretty exhausted by the time we got to the shelter, at just over 9 miles, elevation 5,700 feet. Most of the blowdown had been recently cleared, we only ran into 2 or 3 downed trees, all above the creek crossing, and none that caused any real hassle. About 40 to 50% of this section of trail was slightly overgrown. The trail was visible and obvious, but lots of bush attacking bare legs. There was a nice meadow and views back over the valley just before the shelter. The shelter itself was very nice and we were glad we had pushed on. Four bunks and a table with bench were under the cover of the shelter with some stove pipe and a hole in the corner of the roof there if needed. We found 3 or 4 flat, soft tent sites below the shelter as well, and a pit toilet a hundred or so feet away. A small creek provided cold, clean water from snowmelt somewhere above, and Prince Creek was not much farther along the trail if this snowmelt ran dry. Day 2 After breakfast Saturday morning we continued upward, passing the Surprise Lake trail on our way to the first pass between Baldy Mt and Star peak, at 7,400 feet. On our way up we past the first people we'd seen since unloading from the ferry, a group of 11 that came from the other side of Star Peak. After lunch on the pass with views of Mt. Baker, Glacier Peak, the Entiats, and a glimpse of Lake Chelan, we headed down the other side, spotting several marmots between the pass and the Star Lake trail. On the suggestion of the group we passed earlier, we took the spur to the right up to Star Lake. Once up into the flat area, the trail to the lake gets lost in the meadow. Just follow the lake outlet and find yourself at a great view of Star Peak climbing steeply out of the back of the lake and a nice campsite just to the left of the outlet. Plenty of bugs here to keep you company. This side trip added about 0.6 miles RT. Star Lake is also where we had our second human encounter. We met Billy Sullivan, a Stehekin resident working on his next DVD about trailheads and intersections. His DVD, "Billy Sullivan's Wildflowers of the Northwest" is due out soon. We found out Billy was out for 7 days, and carrying the same amount of weight as us, about 35 lbs. The difference was, 15 lbs of that was camera gear! After a few pictures at the lake, we continued on, with a break at the intersection of the trail up to Tuckaway Lake and Oval Lakes, where there was a nice campsite and two small creeks for refreshment. We spotted a doe in the woods about 100 yards away swatting at the flies. The trail curved around the basin below Gray Peak and climbed up over another 7400 ft pass. More great views over the lake to the Entiats and Glacier Peak came with the trail until it dropped back over to the northeast into the North Fork Fish Creek drainage. We dropped a few hundred feet down to the intersection with the Eagle Pass trail and set up camp, about elevation 6,400 ft. The campsite here was great, good flat spot with log benches about 40 feet from the creek. Good flat, soft areas for tents a couple hundred feet away, and plenty of trees to hang food. After setting up tents, we set off up the Eagle Pass trail at Billy's early recommendation. The trail up to the pass was in good condition, no blowdown, not overgrown, a couple small water sources about halfway up. Once to the top, we climbed up the ridge to the left, towards Battle Mt, for some great views, then headed back down for dinner and met Billy again, camped just up the trail from us. This side trip added about 2.5 miles RT. Day 3 The beginning of Day 3 gave us a nice downhill to the North Fork of Prince Creek, elevation 5,600 feet. Where the trail crosses the creek, there are several small braids 50 to 100 feet apart, making for easy crossing and several spots to splash your face or fill up water. It's again obvious that during times of heavier snowmelt this drainage moves a lot of water. This area of the trail is again brushy in places and had quite a few blowdowns, but again, nothing that took more than an extra 15 seconds to get around or over. After crossing the creek, the trail begins to climb again towards Deephole Springs, the next water source. With the sun out all day, we took this shaded opportunity to soak our shirts and hats and refill water. Another few hundred feet ahead and we came to Deephole Springs camp. This large, relatively flat area had lots of room for tents, horses, and a nice campfire/cooking area with nearby water. After the camp, the trail continued what it does best, climb. We took a few more switchbacks, crossed one more small water source, and came out on top of another pass, this one the dividing line between the Chelan-Sawtooth Wilderness and the Lake Chelan Nat'l Recreation Area. We met up with Billy again at this pass as he was taking pictures of a nice meadow just below with blooming flowers and views of the drainage below. Atop the pass were views in all directions, west to the lake and Entiats, east towards the Twisp River valley. There were even a few large patches of snow just off the trail to sit on and cool down. Below the pass, the trail followed more rocky switchbacks down a few hundred feet and began to traverse northwest below Splawn Mt. The last water source was a small creek at the low point on the trail in the middle of a large basin, before beginning the climb back up to Juanita Lake. Maybe it was optimism, or maybe we were more ired than we thought, but the climb after this looked much shorter on the map than it seemed when we were hiking it. After some steep switchbacks we eventually came out at Juanita and the split to the right to War Creek Pass. Having just run out of water, we trotted around the lake to the outlet, the supposed last water before Purple Pass and down to Purple Creek the next day. To our dismay, the outlet was dry. After setting up camp on the ridge south of the small lake, we boiled some lake water and clogged the water filter to get some clean water for drinking and dinner. As we set off on our evening hike to Boulder Butte we ran into a small stream past the campsites, off the trail heading to Purple Pass. This water wasn't moving quickly, and still didn't look as clean as any of the water we'd seen during the last couple days, but it was better than stagnant lake water. On tired legs, we packed up dinner in our small packs and headed up the many switchbacks to Boulder Butte, 7,350 feet, where we again met Billy with his camera already set up for sunset. We chatted a bit, ate dinner, and watched the sunset over Cascade pass to the west. The 360 degree views and sunset were indescribable. This is a must do side trip if you're in the area. After sunset we headed back down to camp at Juanita. The bugs at this camp were the worst we'd seen the whole trip, but died down as it got dark. They came back in force during breakfast the next morning, though. Juanita is in the National Rec. Area and requires a permit for overnight camping, but War Creek Pass is a stones throw away on the other side of the boundary and we heard campsites there were good, but had no water. Day 4 We woke early on the last day to be sure to get to Stehekin early enough to catch our return ferry to civilization. We had eaten, packed, and left camp by about 7 am. We filled up what water we could with a slow, dirty filter and began our climb to Purple Pass, elevation 6,884 ft, then down the 8 miles to Stehekin. We each left with just over 2 liters of water. With the morning clouds (the first we'd seen the whole trip, and they cleared a few minutes after we reached Stehekin) and early start, this ended up being just the right amount of water to get to the bottom. We counted over 50 switchbacks on the way down, with no break in the downhill. The first and only water source after Juanita is Purple Creek, about 6 miles below Purple Pass and 2 above Stehekin. Without the clouds and later in the day, this part of the hike would be brutal with no break and little cover from the hot sun. We encountered a few blowdowns on the upper portion of this trail, but nothing below about 4,000 feet. We made better than expected time on day 4, getting to Stehekin just after 11 am. We sat down, had a bacon burger, a beer, and some refreshing sweet tea, then went for the most refreshing dip in the lake I've ever had. After about 35 miles and somewhere on the order of 15k feet in total elevation gain, this was the best hike I've been on to date. The nearly continuous views in all directions, the seclusion, and the many peaks and passes made for a great overall experience.

This was intended to be a multiday loop backpacking trip from Stehekin up the Purple Creek trail to the Chelan Summit trail, southeast on the Summit trail to Prince Creek, then back to Lake Chelan on the Prince Creek trail and on to Stehekin again on the Chelan Lakeshore trail. When we reached the summit of the Purple Creek trail at Purple Pass, we found the Summit trail still covered with 2-3 feet of snow we were unprepared to traverse to the Prince Creek trail, so we overnighted at the summit and returned to Stehekin directly on the Purple Creek trail the next day (July 19). So, this report covers specifically the Purple Creek trail. Based on what we could see from Purple Pass and experienced between Purple Pass and Juanita Lake, I suspect the Summit trail will be passable without extensive snow exposure in 2-3 weeks: roughly mid-August. The Purple Creek trail is in pretty good shape from end-to-end. The first two miles or so from Stehekin has been cleared of blowdowns. From roughly mile 2 to mile 5, the trail is overgrown and there are a half dozen or so blowdowns. Only two or three of the blowdowns are more than obnoxious, and all are very passable. Past about mile 5, you're above most of the heavy underbrush growth, so the trail isn't overgrown anymore and the few remaining blowdowns are easily stepped over. We encountered a few small (10-15 feet) snow patches near Purple Pass - only one was particularly scarey. All are likely to be gone in a week or so. We didn't run into any bugs on the trail, but they were plentiful in the Juanita Lake basin and at the pass in the late evening.