First time in two years on this trail, since last year (2021) the trail was closed due to forest fires by the time I wanted to hike it.  The first three and one-half miles are in great shape.  It looks like trail crews have been working this year on the trail (thank you!).  The trail crosses the Middle Fork Cascade River on two logs.  Feel free to butt scoot across the river on the log if walking is too scary.  After 3.5 miles (or so) the trail degrades in some areas such that one has to step over logs or go around obstructions.  In some areas the trail abruptly ends where the nearby South Fork Cascade River has washed it away.  So then one must detour around the washout area and pick up the trail on the other side.  I plodded along until 1 pm, at which time I turned around.  I was wearing shorts and I discovered stinging nettles in one of the brushy areas (ouch).  Actually, the nettles are not to bad in the spring.  But this fall the stings will be much stronger.

September 16: Closures:  The Mt. Baker Ranger District Cascade River Trail, the Middle Fork Cascade Trail and South Fork Cascade Trail are closed to the public due to their proximity to the Pincer Creek Fire. The Sibley Creek Road and Hidden Lake Trail are not currently threatened by the fire, but are closed to allow firefighters to staff the lookout to support fire operations. This closure order is effective Aug 7. 2021 until rescinded: www.fs.usda.gov/alerts/mbs/alerts-notices.

North Cascades National Park staff report that the Cascade River Road will be open to vehicular traffic to the El Dorado parking area (milepost 20). Access beyond that will be foot traffic only, due to debris and rocks that have fallen in an unrelated incident near the Boston Basin culvert. Crews will assess the damage over the next several days to determine a course of action. For additional information please contact North Cascades National Park at 360-854-7245. 

September 15: Over the past several weeks, the weather has shifted to a more fall like pattern with cloudy, moist, cool weather.  “We are thankful that activity on the Pincer Creek Fire is minimal.” Said Kit Moffit, Acting Forest Fire Staff Officer for the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest.  “Based on the current weather forecast and minimal expected fire behavior, we are pleased to announce that Forest System Road #15 (Cascade River Road) will be reopened on September 16, 2021.  We know that the Pincer Creek Fire closure has been a major inconvenience and we appreciate the public’s understanding.

September 10: CLOSURES STILL REMAIN.  Fire now listed at 980 acres.  NEED A REAL RAIN.

Summary: (1) The fire continues to creep and smolder within the old fire scar of the Mineral Park fire. (2) Goals: (a) contain fire as it approaches the South Fork of the Cascade River and (b) Confine and contain fire south of Pincer Creek and north of the South Fork of the Cascade River. (3) Weather: Partly sunny on Friday, turning cloudy in the evening, with a chance of showers. Same forecast for Saturday. Sunday will be colder. Mostly cloudy with a slight chance of showers.

September 3: Closures still remain.  Fire now listed at 900 acres.  Still smothering, i.e., active.  Need a soaker rain.

August 17 Report: Fire grew to 820 acres; however, it the last 24 hours it has cooled dramatically.   Cascade Pass road is still closed.  Fire managers predict that this fire closure will be in place until significant precipitation occurs over the fire area.  They will continue to update their fire models to determine if changes can be made to the closure order.  Mineral Park Campground remains open at this time and is not threatened by the fire.

Cooler weather, higher humidity, and some rain showers should improve conditions.  However, warm, dry weather is forecast for the future.

August 15 Report: Fire managers report that the Pincer Creek Fire is burning more actively on the east side of the fire, while smoldering on the west flank. The fire continues to burn within the Mineral Park Fire footprint and the size is still estimated to be approximately 400 acres. The temperatures for the next two days are expect to return to near normal after record breaking temperatures over the past several days.

USFS recently issued a fire closure order for Forest System Road #15 from mile post 16.0 to mile post 18.1. We know that this is a major inconvenience to visitors, but we needed to take this step to protect the public if fire conditions worsen.

Important to note that the MODIS/VIIRIS image are very coarse scale.  Each rectangle indicates that there is likely a significant heat source somewhere within the rectangle.  Personnel and aircraft resources are so limited now that the precise boundary of the fire is unknown.

The trailhead accessing the South and Middle Forks of the Cascade River is closed as are the trails.  The road to the Hidden Lake Lookout Trail and the trail are closed.  The lookout is being used by the US Forest Service to monitor the fire.  As noted by AntonC (https://www.wta.org/go-hiking/trip-reports/trip_report-2021-08-13-4544547360), the road to the Cascade Pass trailhead is now closed.

The Pincer Creek fire is at mid-slope, 3,000 feet above the valley; the fire's position leads to burning logs rolling downhill, igniting vegetation, and then the fire burns back upslope. Warm, dry conditions over the next several days will increase fire behavior. Fire started August 3, 8:00 pm.

Hello, this is a trip report for an exit out the South Fork Cascade trail (#769) for a Ptarmigan Traverse team, July 2021. 

My Mates and I did a Ptarmigan Traverse trip July 23-31, 2021. We were told the Downey Creek Trail was closed and so eventually settled on attempting to walk out the South Fork Cascade Trail as our exit. So this trip report is an account from the SF Cascade Glacier Research Hut down to the Cascade Pass Road, up the road from Mineral Park Campground.

Our initial PT trip was a success with one of our team grabbing Sentinel Peak, weather was gorgeous and hot, this route is without a doubt a challenge and delivers epic views. Check out my photo album link below.

Now for the Grit. We set out early on July 30th from the SF Cascade Research Hut, a cool place to visit on the ridge above the toe of the SF Cascade Glacier, thanks for the beers Bob! Right off we descend down to the headwaters of the SF Cascade River, this was a wade (1-2 feet deepest in AM). We then tried to find and follow the old existing trail. A note on this trail, in most places it no longer exists, this tail is best navigated using both paper and GPS maps, be sure to have the old USGS map with trail layer uploaded and you can follow off line, using satellite tracking you can position yourself along the trail and then look for the old and new flagging to navigate up or down the route. For some reason my GaiaGPS was not working as well on this day, it would not show on screen where I was, my teammates did not have this problem and I had to rely on them. In all this was to be an 11 hour total hiking day with approximately 5.5 miles gained.

The first photo shows the view from the SF Cascade Research Station and our approximate route out. Note we were headed between the large ridge on the right and small knoll/hill in the middle of the photograph. The route to that knoll was mild, brushy, and manageable with a few meadows to cross. After that knoll, the "trail" took a steep dive downward, I mean steep. Again we were relying on the gps tracking to keep us on top of the trail. As we moved down we started to encounter a mixed conifer forest/hardwood mosaic on the landscape. The hardwood sections were all alder, vine maple and devils club which made some of the most challenging travel as you can imagine, brush so thick you could not see where to place your footing and we were often rolling down hill. Our strategy was to suffer these hardwood crossings and make it to the easier going conifer stands.

As the heat of the day kicked in we continued our hardwood fight frequently picking up a flagged trail and making our way down as best we could. The heat was intense, at first up high we had plenty of water, and we were confident that the tributaries coming off MT. Formidable would sustain us in the middle of the exit route. Wrong, do not count on water in the middle tributaries, they were all dry. As we traveled lower, it grew hotter and the great weather we had all week turned to fire hazy. We rationed water, took frequent breaks and agreed all around that the bushwack sucked. Luckily we found an avalanche chute that had snow in it, this saved us from over heating, we packed our hats and clothes with it and continued on. From there we continued downhill over some blow down until we reached the river, 2 miles before the confluence of the Middle Fork Cascade River. Exhausted, we called it a day and camped along the SF Cascade drinking all the water we can.

Day 2 was an easier 4 miles out. First the 2 miles to the MF Cascade crossing, the trail became easier to follow along the river with some recent brush clearing and extra flagging. The MF Cascade log crossing was easy enough and the trail afterwards up to the old road was positively enjoyable, by the standards of the day before. In all over two days this bushwack took us 14 hours.

In all, I would recommend the SF Cascade River trail as a PT exit, it is not easy, but it beats going back over the PT route or over Spire Glacier and down Downey Creek; either route would be a bushwack I am told. If you are looking to come up the SF Cascade trail to the research station prepare yourself for an epic and challenging bushwack this trail would be no joke and would require enormous commitment and grit. GPS tracking is a must as the trail and flagging are intermittent at best, conditions are hot and brushy and you would have to carry water. Give yourself 2 days at most.

As many readers will already be aware, the South Cascade trail is one of the rare routes available to access a destination with a glacier that empties into a glacial lake, although (as is commonplace in our modern world), the glacier no longer directly calves into the lake.  (Maps have not kept pace with the melting)  Such destinations are of extraordinary personal interest to me and I have tried to visit as many of them as I have been able.  The terrain is typically very rugged.  One of my first such hikes was a glaciological field trip to the Mendenhall Glacier in Alaska.  Busy beavers had destroyed four miles of trail.  It looked to be the work of monster beavers because the trees were felled while there was still deep snow and the cuts were made six feet off the ground.  What a maze of felled trees and beaver ponds that was!  But that was one of the most memorable hikes of my life, where I first learned to recognize in the field the glacial forms: kames, drumlins, eskers, berms, and different types of moraines that glaciers leave by their passage over the landscape and to begin to look at glaciers not merely as they currently appear, but to be able to discern their positions over time and to read the landscape as more than simply random forms. 

In the North Cascades, the number of glacial lakes that still have active glaciers associated with them are few, and all pose difficulties to get to.  Blanca Lake, which was formed by the Columbia Glacier when it was much larger, is easy enough to get to; but getting to the glacier itself is somewhat more difficult.  The bootpath that goes along the side of the lake has some very steep sections and I injured myself once on that route.   The easiest way to get to the far end of the lake is by boat, not by foot.   When I went  by boat last year, I got to the far end half an hour before a hiker who left on foot at the same time.  Then there is Price Lake which has the Price Glacier sitting at its far end, at the base of Mount Shuksan.  There is a boot-beaten path to that destination as well, one that is an extraordinarily steep and potentially dangerous hike, starting with the ford of the North Fork Nooksack, the crossing of which is located in an area of strong current directly above rapids.  But that’s not all.  The bootpath is hard to find and I went up the wrong side of the creek the first time I went up and had one of the scariest experiences I’ve ever had as a hiker.  The Price Glacier used to be much larger and higher – the steep-side lateral moraines alongside Price Lake are five hundred feet high.  This is very difficult terrain. Another rugged hike is getting to Pea Soup Lake at the base of the Lynch Glacier on Mount Daniel.  The route up valley from Marmot Lake, past No Name Lake and Jade Lake and up moraine and snowfields to the pass overlooking the Lynch Glacier is extremely rugged and cannot be a route for the average hiker.  I could mention a few others.

I make these remarks to make a point about the kind of trail the South Cascade trail was when it was built, is now and at some point in the future may become.  There are many reasons why this trail CAN NEVER be a trail built ‘to standard’, some I will mention below.  Even if there was the money to bring this trail to National Park standards, it would need expensive annual maintenance.  Nature is constantly changing the landscape and this wild place is an especially good example.  Many of us who are willing to tolerate a trail that is far from perfect have been looking longingly at the map for years wanting to get to the South Cascade Glacier.  My hiking partner and I did not make it to the lake, we needed two nights and we only gave ourselves one.  This was a mistake, but we got in farther than any recent reports for which we had knowledge.  I was also on this trail in early May, went four miles in and thus was able to observe the changes on the trail since then.  The human-made changes paled in comparison with the ones that nature made to the point where I didn’t recognize my earlier turn-around point when I went in.  I only found it on the way out.  There was still snow on the ground in May and the annual growth cycle had barely begun.  What’s obvious now is that the type of vegetation that grows in the open meadows along this trail is an absolute jungle and sadly, there isn’t much that can ever be done about it except to mow it on an annual basis.  Some trails are maintained in this fashion, but this is not a reasonable expectation for this trail.  There is bracken fern eight feet tall, lady fern that is six feet tall and a host of spiny plants including stinging nettles, salmonberry, gooseberry and devil’s club.  We whacked down as much of the stinging nettles as we could with our trekking poles, but we still got stung with nettles many times.  Without permanent flagging, it will never be easy to find one’s way through this stuff during the growing season.  Many of these meadows are the product of winter avalanches which prevent the establishment of forest, but as one gets close to what is known as Box Canyon, there are several gullies with even more intense avalanche activity.  One of them has so much debris-covered snow that it is doubtful that it will ever melt out this season.  No trail can ever be built through these gullies, it would be destroyed on an annual basis.  The violence is staggering.  But these gullies are so steep-walled that the current flagged route to get past them is an exhausting, time-consuming series of ups and downs that could be alleviated with better trail engineering.  But the exhausting ups and downs don’t stop here.  The problems that lie ahead in opening this trail will not be solved by pulling out a little salmonberry here, doing a little trail widening there and a little smoothing out of the tread somewhere else.  The trail needs to be logged.  That is the highest priority.  How I would love to be part of a serious attempt to get those logs off this trail!  The first area with major downed logs is located before the trail leaves the burned zone.  The part that is in a flat area is not so hard, but the one a little farther on, located on the slope, is tough. 

We camped at a location called Deliverance Creek, according to one of the maps at our disposal.  Although it was early in the day when we stopped, 2:30 pm, later we were sure glad we’d made the decision to stop there.  At our speed with overnight packs, it was five and a half hours from the trailhead.  But this is the last water for a long time.  Although this map indicated this spot was a campsite, there is no sign of previous human occupation.  We found a couple spots level enough to erect tents, but it would require some terraforming to create a true campsite.  In fact, we found no true “campsites” up to this point on the route.  We passed a small widening of the trail at “Absent Creek” with a tiny little fire ring, but the creek was indeed absent.  It is possible to camp along the South Fork Cascade River where the trail is nearby, but once the trail leaves the river, our site close to Box Canyon is the only option.  We did a little exploring after we set up camp, but saved the big push for the following day.

Since I was in this area in early May, someone came in and removed much of the older flagging for the route and put in new material.  We could see clearly that several people had been through before we got there.  The trail through the forest up Box Canyon is steep, but easy to see where it is possible to follow.  Downed logs across the trail have turned sections from steep to very steep as it becomes necessary to go straight up to circumvent major obstructions.  We reached an area at about 3000’ where the grade eased and the trail entered a patch of blueberry where the tread became indistinct.  Beyond this, we found more clearly defined trail and even a trail blaze of the old-fashioned kind that was made with a sharp object on a standing tree.  There were steep cliffs to our left and we were seeing ever more steep drop-offs to the right.  I was in the lead and finally, I saw no more trail blazes, nor any more tread.  We figured something was wrong and we back-tracked.  My partner’s GPS indicated that we were 300’ below the actual route.  I went through a nasty patch of vine maple to search for a way up on the only part of the slope that was not pure cliff.  No way could this be the way up.  Next we went back to the spot where the flagging stopped and tried to push on.  Eventually we reached a very beautiful spot right on the river (see picture below), but there was no possible way to move upstream from that point.  No proper trail could ever go through the area without dynamite, there’s just too much steep rock.  So next, we backtracked even further.  We figured whoever flagged the route earlier this year got off route, turned around when they reached a dead end and didn’t remove the bad flagging.  Finally, we found a place where the ridge we needed to ascend looked climbable.  I scouted above the trail a few minutes while my partner, within shouting distance, found the actual turn-off.  This year’s flagger went straight ahead while the actual route turns sharply to the left uphill.  It was an easy mistake to make because the trail he was following was clearly defined in the moss.  Why there was a trail that way, we have no idea.  We put a lot of material across the bad route to discourage a repeat of this mistake.  There was no doubt we found real trail.  The tread was still very clear after all these years of neglect.  We found the first real campsite we’d seen on a ledge above the valley with a view to a cliff on the other side.  Somebody had probably used it this year to judge by how few needles and hemlock cones were resting on the charcoal in the fire pit.  But, alas, no water nearby.  The trail from here heads into a patch of vine maple that could use some serious pruning.  Once past the vine maple, there’s not much woody material to tie flags to. Somewhere in this mass of herbaceous greenery we lost the flagging and headed up hill to traverse below the cliff.  We truly regretted this.  Not only did we hit ever more stinging nettles, but once past that, I got into a steep section in the trees and had a few “Oh-my-God-what-am- I-going-to-do-now” moments before reaching more secure footing.  Unfortunately, even then, we were not even close to what on one map is called Dismal Gap, where we hoped to re-encounter the trail that we had lost.  We went up through “Desperation Slide” and hit some of the worst bushwhacking either of us had done in many years.  Everything was thorny.  We pretty much gave up getting to the lake.  Once at the top of the gap, we found the trail in a few minutes.  And it is nice trail, the tread is very clear.  Unfortunately, once at the gap, it heads into a multi-tree blowdown that we did not explore further.  We had something to eat and headed back down, avoiding the terrible meadow of Desperation Slide.  The trail got steeper as we headed down through beautiful forest, but still a massive improvement over the terrain we went up.  When it finally exited onto the meadow, we could see this spot was flagged, but we’d missed it, despite searching, on the way up.  If you lose the flagging across the meadow, just go straight across, don’t go up!  Going downhill and now knowing the correct route, our return was much faster than our travel in.  I am still hopeful to make it to the lake this year. 

Many of the trees in the South Cascade are huge.  There was one log in the creek where we made our campsite that was ten feet in diameter.  Negotiating downed logs will always be a part of completing a trip along this trail.  Since the last work party worked on this trail, there is now a new downed log across the road section – that is, close to the beginning.  But this log is not the most important work to be done.  It is easily traversed by going over and under the pieces.  There will always be another log.  Opening the South Cascade trail needs to be looked at as a whole, fully cognizant of the purpose of this trail.  Who is going to use it? Considering how far this hike is from major population centers, it is too far to drive to unless it goes somewhere.  Yes, it’s a beautiful river hike, but there are lots of those that go much farther than this one now does in its improved state.  It will always remain little used until it reaches the lake.  Our glaciers are disappearing and some of us are willing tough out a rugged trail to get to these places before they are utterly transformed by the climatic changes are happening and still lie ahead.

Time again for me to see how far I could get on this.  One car at the trailhead, I kept thinking I was going to see someone but never did.  Maybe they were just sleeping in their car.  Rode my bike the 1.3 miles each way to the old road end, saves about half an hour total over walking.

Made good time to Y that I found last time.  Took the intermittently flagged upper route, really pretty terrible.  I don't know if it was the heat, no trail, prickly bushes, branches and logs, but I came to the conclusion that most hikers would not do this.  Made it across the brush to single orange flag, no idea where to go from there.  Turned around.

I went back to the Y and took the lower trail.  Much better!  Stays in the forest so no brush, in pretty good shape really.  But on a steep slope some of the trail had slid away, so much you could not safely proceed.  I could not see beyond, may get good again?  I need to bring some rope so I can get past the obstacle and see what's over there.

I found a couple tiny places you could sleep toward the end if this route goes and it needs work.  If the upper route is the only one I don't know what to do.  I think the lower is the original.

I had thought I had gotten to Drop Creek previously but I was not that far.  Today I could see I was just beyond the Box Canyon.  I clipped again on the way out, everything below here is looking better and better.  I didn't bother clipping the really thick new growth in the open areas, could hardly make a difference anyway.  I'll let you know what I find beyond the rope, wish me luck!