Hiked Purple Pass on 6/20.  Started around noon (after arriving on Ferry).  Was first warm day of year and felt good, but this trail exposed so if hot pack plenty of water.  Stream crossing at 1.8 miles.  Minor and doable with poles.  Trail fairly clear first 4 miles.  After 4 miles multiple blow downs to cross.  We hit snow at 6 miles up/6000 elevation.  Gorgeous views and tons of flowers right now.  Views from start, but really opens after 5 miles to even more of the north cascades.  Saw deer and a lot of grouse.  *we stayed night at stehekin lodge.  Pastry company open, but lodge restaurant closed again (lost chef).  We did side trips next day to rainbow falls and bit of lakeshore trail.  Beautiful all around. 

This was my 9th trek to Stehekin and 2nd during the fall and I have decided I love fall best!  Timing it with the Apple Harvest Festival and one of the last weekends for the bakery makes it all the more magical.

We took the boat in on Friday and this time paid the extra to stow our bikes from home.  Just two days of riding bikes makes it a better deal than renting in town with much more flexibility.

Like last year Purple Point Campground was our home base, mostly because we had Boulder Butte in our sights and the Purple Creek Trail's proximity to the campground made it ideal for an early start. I love site #5 for its view of the lake and surrounding mountains but this year was a bit louder than last because whoever was staying in the yellow house across the road was super vocal until the wee hours. Even through ear plugs. Next year I'll choose something further uplake.

Anyway, we spent Friday eating bakery treats, exploring the Harlequin campground and riding our bikes up to High Bridge and watching the kokanee swirl in the Stehekin River. We picked half a box of apples in the orchard and hauled them back for the bear box! The restaurant closed on Labor Day but we spent the evening on the landing with beverages from the store and some snacks brought from home.  There were a few thru hikers enjoying their zeros/neros but it was so much quieter than your normal Friday evening. The weather was sunny enough for t-shirts and shorts most of the day.

Saturday we rose at 5am and headed up the Imus Creek Trail right from camp with headlamps on. Around the viewpoint it was clear there had been a slide and I could see a large downed tree had been cut up having narrowly missed the wooden bench.

Imus is quick and we began the never-ending switchbacks of Purple Creek around 5:45am. If you read my report from last year, you know I attempted the trail but turned around when the skies opened up around a mile up. Today promised no rain but I brought a jacket anyway because who wants to jinx it? I had read about the water sources so I stopped to drink water and fill up at bottle at 1.75 miles up (all mileage will be from the Purple Creek Trail junction, add .5 mile if coming from the PP camp).  Despite how much noise the creek seems to make lower down, the crossing is little more than a trickle right now.  I was glad to have more than a liter as the trail does take a lot out of you.

By 7am the surrounding mountains were glowing with the pink of sunrise and we could see up and down the lake. There was a nice viewpoint right after the creek crossing but we stopped at 3000ft and 2.25 miles up for breakfast and coffee.  McGregor was snow-free but Buckner was tipped with white as we appreciated the new day. We had already shed our layers to t-shirts at this point but each stop would have us adding them on again.

Back to more switchbacks and gain!  The trail was in good shape overall as we climbed the south side of the Purple Creek drainage, there was ripe elderberry overhead, rosy thimbleberry leaves and fiery huckleberry foliage. Burning bush, anyone? The snowbrush was obnoxious in places, I was glad to have pants on and my arms complained as I walked past trying to stay on the trail and not erode the outslope. Nothing that will draw blood so if you are a shorts-or-die person you will be okay. If you are really desperate for water, there are a few places around 4 miles and 4400ft in where you can tell Hazard Creek would be reachable at a switchback if you had to.

At 5600ft and 5.75 miles, we rounded the ridge and took the final push to Purple Pass. Here is not only where we glimpsed our first golden larch but where it was clear that Caltopo is WAY off on the mileage (says its only 5.8 from Imus to junction with Juanita). I did know WTA says its longer but there was a SMALL part of me still hoping for the Caltopo version up until this point.  Having spent the last 3 months mostly bike riding, the round trip on this baby was going to hurt.

The trail is really lit up here with fall colors and we knew were in for a treat. The larches increased as the white granite did, making the amber hues pop.  I would say the larches were in the middle, a few still had green at the branches and some had turned towards tangerine. The previous burn meant the views were expansive here but we knew we had the 360s at Boulder to look forward to.

We arrived at Purple Pass at 11am, 6900ft and 7.3 miles in.  I enjoyed a snack while the hub scrambled up a bit to check out the views into the Juanita Lake drainage. It felt cold enough to snow despite the sun so the jacket was back on!

At the junction for Juanita Lake and Boulder Butte we talked about which one we wanted to do first. We opted for the butte first for the momentum but within a few hundred yards when we could see down at the lake I mentally decided a view from above would be good enough.  Save that for another backpacking trip.

It was a golden larch fest from the junction to the top of Boulder (8 miles, 7360ft) which turned out to be just a walk up, no scramble involved.  The slog of switchbacks was worth it, the views here are everything and more.  We had the top to ourselves for awhile, pondering the lookout remnants (mostly broken glass) and eating lunch.  We were joined by the only other person we would see ALL day, Maggie who works at the lodge and took the day to hike after being here since April.

We left the top to Maggie around 1pm and headed back down. My husband had the goal to see if he could make it back to the landing before the store closed at 4:30pm, he made it in two hours. I, on the other hand, took closer to 4 hours as I babied my knees. It was t-shirt weather all the way down and I stopped to pick a few elderberries, too. The round trip from the Imus junction to Boulder Butte was 15.9 miles so it was about a 17 mile trip from PP campground. I literally fell into my tent and was never more glad I did not have a drive home!

We left the next day after an early morning ride to the bakery as it opened up at 7:30am (the hubs says the biscuit and gravy is the BOMB) and the orchard for more apple picking and old-fashioned cider making. We may have been a little overzealous, it doesn't take as many apples as you think to make cider!  My backpack may have been the heaviest thing departing on the ferry home.

My friend and I did a four day larch hunting trip out in the Chelan Sawtooth Wilderness from. We hiked the Prince Creek Trail, Chelan Summit Trail, and Purple Creek Trail.

Day 1 (9/30): Prince Creek Trail to Chelan Summit Trail Shelter

We took the Lady Express from Fields Point Landing and were dropped off at Prince Creek around 10:30. We followed the Lakeshore Trail across the bridge over Prince Creek and quickly found the well marked Prince Creek trail. The trail was well maintained and easy to follow, but clearly does not see as much use as the Lakeshore Trail. The first four miles of the trail had no creek access and I imagine it could get quite hot as you head up as there isn't a lot of shade. It was raining for us so this wasn't an issue. We saw two baby rattlesnakes within the first mile or so, but they were very slow in the cold. After about four miles we came to a crossing of Prince Creek, this was the first water source of the trail. There was no bridge, but it was an easy ford for me and my friend opted to rock hop. We had lunch on the far side of the creek it a small campsite. There was a fire ring and you could probably squeeze two tents in. After the creek the trail became more forested and was very overgrown and brushy which means we got soaked. The fall colors were really starting to show though. We crossed several small streams between the Prince Creek crossing and the Chelan Summit Trail junction, one had a log bridge and the others were easy to hop across without getting our feet wet. There were a couple small blow downs to get over, but nothing bad. It looked like a crew had been through recently clearing out blowdowns. After about 8 miles we headed north on the Chelan Summit Trail and camped at the shelter just past the junction. The shelter itself only had one or two bunks you could actually sleep in, as well as a nice table with a bench. There are some holes in the roof so I wouldn't recommend it if it was raining heavily. Just below the shelter there were several good looking tent sites. There is also a toilet here, but its in view of the campsite, shelter, and trail so use at your own risk.  There's a little clearing just down the trail from the shelter that had beautiful sunset views.

 Day 2 (10/1): Chelan Summit Trail to Tuckaway Lake

We had a slow start because we didn't want to put on our wet hiking clothes from the day before. The trail kept climbing and we started seeing larches not long after we passed the junction to Surprise Lake. The larches just kept getting better and better the higher we climbed. We detoured  off the summit trail to go to Star Lake for lunch. The lake was beautiful -- nestled between Star peak and a big grove of larches. We other people for the first time on our trip at the lake, there were several groups camped there. After lunch we went back to the summit trail and continued on. We hiked for a couple miles through an old burn before heading back into the larches. We reached the trail junction for Oval Pass  where there was some camping and another toilet. We opted to head up to Tuckaway lake via the Oval Pass trail to camp for the night. There were two other groups at the lake and not many campsites. The lake was ringed with larches, but it wasn't  as stunning as Star. This was the coldest night of the trip for us. While we were cooking dinner some of the water I had collected to filter had frozen in the bag and we noticed some of the small streams were frozen over in the morning.

 Day 3 (10/2): Chelan Summit Trail to Juanita Lake

After breakfast and packing up camp we headed back down to the Summit Trail. We spent the morning crossing the open hillsides and then climbing up and over a small pass. We then dropped nearly two thousand feet down to and we we're out of the larches. Along the way we passed the Eagle Pass trail junction which had a nice looking camp by it, there was another campsite not long after that. After the Eagle Pass junction it was clear that this area didn't see as much use and there was a lot of evidence of animal activity, although the only animals we saw on the trip were one deer, some sooty grouse, and the two snakes. It was kind of an eerie forest and wasn't somewhere I personally would have liked to camp. There were a few minor blowdowns through this section, but nothing bad. Eventually we started climbing back up. On the climb back up we passed Deephole Spring, which had a large camp and a stream running through it. Not long after this we got back up into the larches and had some of the best views of the trip. The larches up here just go on for miles covering all of the mountainsides. We took a short break at the top of the climb where we officially entered the Lake Chelan National Recreation Area. We continued for a couple more miles before ending our day at Lake Juanita. We took a quick detour to check out War Creek Pass to see if there was a good view, and there weren't so save yourself the trip. Lake Juanita was kind of marshy and not particularly beautiful. It was kind of a pain getting water without getting our feet wet or falling in, but the water itself wasn't too gross to drink. We camped up above the lake on its far side and had a beautiful view of the larch covered mountains.

 Day 4 (10/3): Purple Creek Trail to Stehekin

We got up early and didn't make breakfast because we were determined to make it down to Stehekin by 11 to catch the shuttle to the bakery. There was a short climb up to Purple Pass, and then it was all down hill. At the pass we got our final expansive view of the larches and could even see Lake Chelan way down below. The upper trail was a bit rougher than we expected with lots of rocks and sticks, so we had to watch our steps. As we descended there was also a lot of Snowbrush growing over the trail that we had to push through and it often coincided with narrower trail, so again I was watching my step pretty carefully. There were a lot of great views of Lake Chelan on the way down. Eventually the forest opened up and the trail became easier to navigate so we were able to cruise the rest of the way down to the lake. We somehow managed the decent of 5,800 feet in 4 hours and popped out in the campground by the visitor center a few minutes before the boat got there. We made a quick bakery run to get treats before loading back up on the Lady Express and back to Fields Point.

 Despite the cold and the first day of rain, this was one of the most stunning backpacking trips either one of us had been on. The larches were at their peak and I have never seen so many before. We spent the better part of two days hiking through them and soaking it in. It's truly hard to describe how magnificent it was out there. Also the sheer diversity of this hike made it really fascinating. We started in a dry ponderosa forest with snakes, hiked through subalpine fir and Doug fir forests, through larches, and all the way back down to lake Chelan. There was a little bit of everything. We were also pleasantly surprised about how well maintained the trail was and how easy it was to follow given how little information there is out there compared to other trails and how few people we saw out there. It did seem like a crew had been through recently because there were a lot of freshly cut blowdowns. The lack of crowds was also a huge plus for us. I think we saw 12 people in total, all but two of which were camping at the lakes. If you're looking for a beautiful, but challenging, larch hike and want to avoid the crowds I can't recommend this loop enough!

Started on a Thursday with a ride up to North Navarre/Summer Blossom trailhead. We elected Summer Blossom trailhead over South Navarre as the Summit trail 1259 sustained major fire damage from South Navarre to Deadman Pass, which has been made worse with moto traffic. We were very happy we took the Summer Blossom trail as it had no fire damage and provided a slightly better elevation profile.  

We hiked ~15 miles first night and camped on a tent sized river gravel patch. The next morning we hiked .5 mile to stumble across the The North Fork Prince Creek Shelter. Whoops. The mark for this shelter on FS maps is in the wrong place - it should be one creek north. 

Day 2 there were a lot of blowdowns in the Fish Creek drainage from the 2001 Rex Creek fire. Nothing we couldn't deal with but they probably added an hour to our day and a good chunk of much needed energy. Awesome camp at Fish Creek Pass trail 1248 intersection and 2 excellent camps near  Eagle Pass trail 1259B intersection. We ended up camping at "Comfort Camp" ~1.2 miles from the National Recreation Area boundary. This camp was large, relatively flat, had good water nearby, but was a little buggy. 

Day 3 we left early for a push to Stehekin. Lake Juanita was low and had a lot of algae - we were very happy we filled our bottles with water at the camp as we didn't want to bother stopping to filter water just to carry it down to Stehekin. Purple Pass trail was completely clear of blowdowns with only the occasional overgrown bush or two. We felt every foot of that 5700' descent but were very happy to make it to Stehekin before noon. 

Day 1: https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/7223010011
Day 2: https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/7223017770
Day 3: https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/7223025600

I lost a black Iphone about 2-3 miles up Purple Pass trail. If anyone finds it please email nathanschaeffer@gmail.com. Thanks!