Started off on a rainy morning and was greeted by a bear in the parking lot at the foot of Cascade Pass. The rain got stronger but it wasn't too bad until we got over the pass and onto the Upper Stehekin Valley trail, where the rock fields were very slippery and less trees gave less cover. Long first day to Cottonwood, towards the end of that day the vine maples and thimble berries were over the trail...and made everything on us VERY wet. No one joined us at this camp.
Next day it was drizzling and cloudy. Headed for High Bridge camp. The trail looks like it's right by the Stehekin river on the map but you are above it most of the time making it inaccessible for water except for a few places (Flat Creek Trail junction was a good fill up spot). Most of the trail between Cottonwood and Bridge Creek was VERY overgrown. It was a bit disconcerting as there was A LOT of bear scat, and we felt we couldn't see if there was a bear up ahead. Luckily we didn't see one. The trail improved as we got closer to bridge creek and opened up/was maintained on the PCT section to Bridge Creek Camp. Saw very few people again and had our pick of sites. We were elated to see picnic benches at the site and easily accesible water from a creek. Both sites have bear boxes. We did a day hike to HIgh Bridge, then took the bus to Stehekin (CHECK THE SCHEDULE ahead of time, we did not and missed the 12:45 bus by 10 minutes...waited for 2.5 hours for the next one) and enjoyed a 90 minute visit to beautiful Lake Chelan and Stehekin. A dip in the cold water was appreciated on this hot, sunny day.
After drying out ALL of our gear at Bridge Creek we returned to Cottonwood for our 4th and final night. Again, we were the only ones at the camp.
We finished our trip over Cascade Pass on Sunday with LOTS of people. Most were going on to Sahale Arm or had the pass as their destination. We were happy to be in a group of about 10 as we encountered a bear on about the last third of the switchbacks. It decided to run towards us and then turned around on a dime and left when someone yelled "Does anyone have bear spray?!", which several of us did. It is difficult to remain calm and yell at the bear as it starts running towards you!! We were happy to be among lots of people as we continued down, and didn't see it again.
Overall a very fun, gorgeous (when not raining) hike, nice wildflowers especially in the upper valley, hard first day due to the rain/slippery rocks and hard fourth day as it was up, up, up the valley to the pass. I don't think I'd do it again. I'd definitely consider camping at Pelton Basin for 2-3 nights and day hiking to Sahale and Horseshoe Basin. Also would consider hiking to Stehekin from Rainy Pass...I bet it's well maintained since it's all PCT.
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