After reading glowing reports about Cradle Lake, I set out with my friend David, for a 4 day backpack going over Paddy Go Easy Pass, to Klonaqua Lakes and then up Snowall Creek to Cradle Lake. I expected some brushy conditions on the Snowall Creek trail, but after numerous backpacks along Icicle Creek and its tributaries, I was surprised to find French Creek trail, #1595 and Meadow Creek trail, #1559, to be very brushy and, at times, quite difficult to follow. We began our trip by ascending Paddy Go Easy Pass. The road going in was filled with potholes and we averaged less than 20 miles per hour. For the first several miles the valley was enveloped in thick smoke from a fire on the other side of the valley and we we're contemplating turning around and going elsewhere. But a couple of miles from the trailhead, the smoke cleared and was never an issue for the 4 days we we're out. We we're on the trail by 10 AM and arrived at the pass in a little over 2 hours. The trail has a constant moderate gradient and was in good condition with great views all the way to the top. The trail descending the other side of the pass gave us our first taste of what we would be encountering for most of the remainder of the trip. It was a little brushy, but easy to follow. When we got the bottom of the valley and the junction with the Meadow Creek trail, the French Creek trail became extremely brushy and obscure. In the first mile it crossed the creek 4 or 5 times. We would come to the creek and the trail would disappear in the washed out creek bed. It often took several minutes of tramping around in the bushes to find the faint trail on the other side. There we're no cairns or ribbons. It seemed like this trail was rarely used or maintained. The trail up to Klonaqua Lakes was like an obstacle course that the military might use for basic training. The first half of the trail alternated between blowdowns, brush and deeply eroded ravines with a tangle of branches. At around 4400', the trail turned to the left and began to climb quite steeply. Fortunately, from this point, it was relatively clear. We arrived at the first lake around 6:30 PM, exhausted. There was a ranger camped at the lake who told us what to expect on the trails going into and out of Cradle Lake. The next day we got an early start and descended from the lake to the French Creek trail, which we followed downstream for a mile to the junction with the Snowall Creek trail, #1560. Based on the description in the "100 Hikes" book and the information given to us by the ranger, we expected this to be a difficult trail, and we weren't disappointed. Wading across French Creek was easy, but after that the fun started. This trail obviously gets little use and required our constant attention to make out the faint tread barely visible through the brush. At around 5000', the trail completely disappeared in a boggy meadow. We made our way through the chest high foliage until we came to the end of the meadow. Ahead of us was a cirque with Snowall Creek cascading downwards and to the left was a meadow filled valley. It was a beautiful place, but we didn't really appreciate it, as it seemed that we had reached a dead end. There was a thicket of impenetrable alder in front of us. After stumbling about aimlessly for several minutes, we finally broke out the compass and realized that the trail went up the valley to our left. Without any evidence of a trail, we started to make our way up the hillside and entered the woods. We followed what seemed to be faint game trails, and after a few minutes, miraculously somehow wound up on the trail again. The trail climbed through the meadows and almost completely disappeared several times, especially for the last several hundred feet of elevation gain. Within a couple of years, this upper section of the trail will be gone. Aim for the lowest spot on the ridge and ignore a trail that seems to be going up along the ridge to your right. Once we attained the top of the ridge, the trail became quite well defined as we descended to Cradle Lake. The 8.5 miles and 2700' feet of elevation took us all day. Our next day was our layover day at the lake. I was thinking of day hiking Blackjack Ridge, but we decided against it and we're both grateful to have a day off to relax at the lake and do some local exploration. Cradle Lake is one of the most beautiful alpine lakes I have ever visited. It is surrounded by lovely meadows and there are great views across Jack Creek to Eightmile and Cashmere Mountain. We spent over an hour looking for established campsites and found only one near the shore of the lake that was closed for revegetation. I suppose it's possible that there are established campsites, but we never found any and finally camped in a grassy area on the ridge overlooking Jack Creek. Our last day started with an uneventful descent from the lake to the Meadow Creek trail. Then the trail disappeared in a large meadow. After stumbling around and getting wet in the woods at the far end of the meadow, we finally found the trail by going uphill away from the creek. This trail was no better than the Snowall Creek trail. A couple of times we wound up crawling on our hands and knees in alders and had to back track to look for the trail in a different direction. We finally made our way over the rocky divide between the headwaters of Meadow and French Creek and closed our loop when we got the junction with the French Creek trail at the bottom of Paddy Go Easy Pass. This was a challenging but very rewarding trip. I hope some basic maintenance wil be done on these trails before they completely disappear.

West to East Crossing of Alpine Lakes Wilderness August 28 to Sept. 5 8/28 Necklace Valley/East Fork Foss River. Two of us entered in light drizzle via Necklace Valley trail, camping at Jade Lake. Buggy when no breeze or rain. Wet brush overhanging trail at thigh level. 8/29 LaBohn Lakes. Continued up to head of valley and up way trail to LaBohn Lakes. Well cairned. Take talus slide upward along left edge to near its top. Cairns mark start of trail through trees to left and up. Camped at lower lake. Rain in evening, then clearing and ice on tent fly in morning. Decent cairns up and south to LaBohn Gap. 8/30 LaBohn Gap, Williams Lake, Dutch Miller Gap, Waptus River. Passed through LaBohn Gap and down to Chain Lakes, and on down below. Cairns less frequent, several variations marked, some snow remaining in bottom of valley, hard and thick. Found top of way trail down to Williams Lake at head of gully opening into talus slope below. Trail veers off to left of gully into trees and does not descend talus. Quite a bit of blowdown on this way trail, with fresh work arounds, careful trail spotting. Many bugs at Williams Lake. Good trail down to junction with Middle Fork Snoqualmie and up to Dutch Miller Gap. Trail down to Ivanhoe Lake is good. Bridge crushed below Ivanhoe, badly slanted, unsuitable for horses or easy walking, but passable. Further down, trail is a bit brushy, very noticable when wet. One creek crossing before intersection with PCT needed poles to avoid fording. 8/31 PCT from Waptus River to Cathedral Pass. Good trail, many people, blueberries ripe in a couple places, and no where else on the entire trip. 9/1 Cathedral Pass to Robin Lakes Creek crossings on PCT are fine. Trial up to Tuck and Robin Lakes clearly marked, well cairned up to Robin Lakes, but need to pay attention or its easy to lose. Bugs not too bad at Robin Lakes. Frost and freezing overnight, but still bugs in morning. Three mountain goats visited our camp in morning. 9/2 Cross country up to ridge of Granite Peak, and south along eastern side of ridge. Descended to unnamed round lake halfway down to Klonaqua Lakes, mostly on heather slopes and talus, connecting ledges to avoid seriously cliffy gullies. Check 7.5 minute Mt Daniels topo for best looking terrain. From unnamed lake, at lower edge and right of outlet, we found a cairn and faint fisherman's trail leading down a ways and then left into a rock slot weakness through first band of cliffs below lake. The route through the second band of cliffs much lower was right of the main stream (facing down)and well right of the initial slot descent. Eventually reached the upper lake shore at its head in a grassy area. Faint fishermans trail (mostly bushwack)leads clockwise around northern shore to campsite on isthmus between the two lakes. Summary of day: Difficult cross country routefinding through potentially hazardous terrain. No ropes or ice ax needed but care and experience. May be other better routes down. About 7 hours from Lower Robin Lake including much map reading, looking, exploring several sections without packs, and enjoying the views. 9/3 Klonaqua Lakes/French Ck/Snowall Ck Followed fishermans trail (good though) from isthmus to Bob Lake, and along outlet of Bob Lake down and left to join official Klonaqua Lakes trail left of outlet creek. Trail has a number of trees across it and is brushy lower down. Crossing of Klonaqua Ck at junction with French Ck trail easy on rocks without ford now. Descended French Ck trail to junction with Snowall Crk trail. Ford of French Ck not difficult at this time, but hiker ford doesn't lead to trail on the other side which is well south of where Snowall Ck joins French Ck. The obvious shallow ford is north of Snowall Ck. Signage, etc could be better. Bushwacked to find trail. Snowall Ck trail is good turning to brushy further up. Camped in meadow west of Cradle Pass. Not too buggy. Trail easy to lose in some meadows, with horse and elk variations, mud and overgrowth. 9/4 Cradle Lake, Meadow Ck, Jack Ck. Trail up over Cradle Pass and down to Cradle Lk is generally good. Beautiful area with great views of Stuart Pass, Mt Stuart from NW and north side of Ingall's Peak. Unfortunately, 5-6 small forest fires were burning in upper Jack Ck basin, above where Meadow Ck joins Jack Ck. These obstructed our planned exit over Stuart Pass to N Fork of Teanaway. Trail down to Meadow Ck was good, as was Meadow Ck trail from Snowall/Cradle Lake trail junction to junction with Jack Ck trail. Temporary sign at Jack Ck announced closure of Jack Cr Trail and Van Epps Pass Trail south of Meadow Ck. due to fires. (Caused by lightning several weeks earlier we later discovered.) So we descended Jack Ck. to Icicle River Road. Trail generally good. No cars, no people at trailhead or campgrounds at Rock Island or Chatter Ck. Camped at Chatter Ck Campground, not understanding why all was so deserted. 9/5 Icicle River Road Got up early, and began hiking down road to east. After a mile, the river began running over the road and we understood why there were no cars or people. A one lane fairly new dirt road workaround led about half a mile around the washout. It was closed to traffic and had lots of boot prints. At the new road end, two empty cars, two portapotties, and a good view of the river running off the road for the last time. ( We later learned a June 8, 2008 landslide provoked by rain/snow melt came down the northern facing slope into the river, diverting it onto the road on the northern side of the old river bed.) We very luckily picked up a ride almost immediately from a newly arrived car and had a real breakfast in Leavenworth. We were prepared to take the bus home, leaving Leavenworth at 1:10pm for Seattle, arriving 4:30pm, but an anxious family member came to get us instead. This is a classic crossing of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, linking a number of very scenic lakes, passes and lightly used trails. Except along the PCT over Labor Day Weekend, we saw a total of 8 people, all but two day hikers. Unsettled weather and the Icicle Ck Road washout may have helped us here. We went 48 hours west of PCT seeing no one, and 72 hours east of PCT seeing no one. The difficult cross country section above Klonaqua Lakes could be avoided by descending into the Cle Elum River from Cathedral Pass and ascending over Paddy-Go-Easy Pass to French Ck and Meadow Ck Pass. This has the disadvantage of touching a road, missing Tuck and Robin Lakes, Klonaqua Lakes and Cradle Lake. The exit over Stuart Pass would be most ideal, and we intend to go back to finish our trip properly.

A full report is on my blog: http://hammer-rocknroll-money.blogspot.com/2008/08/foolish-hiking-plans.html Here is a synopsis of trail conditions Trail Conditions: Ingalls Lake - clear, good condition Jack Creek - some minor windfall, lost trail in swampy meadows Snowall/Cradle - brushy areas Meadow Creek - extremely brushy in spots, some windfall, lost trail in swamp meadows French Creek - windfall, relatively good tread Paddy-Go-Easy Pass - clear, relatively good condition South Scatter Creek - extremely brushy in meadows, no tread in many areas, significant avalanche and windfall debris County Line - very thin trail with no tread in meadows, windfall, disapears in alpine areas Lake Ann / Esmeralda Basin - clear, good condition, water on some portions of trail