We hiked up Railroad grade to Sandy Camp on a warm, sunny Thursday. As others have noted, FR 13 is in poor shape with many deep potholes and car-shuddering washboard. The density of the potholes precludes steering around them, so be prepared for a rough ride. High clearance and 4WD were helpful. I wouldn’t advise trying the drive in a low clearance vehicle.
The parking lot was half empty when we arrived at around 10:30 a.m. I have never seen so few cars in the lot. We also saw only a handful of people on the trail. There were 7 tents at Sandy Camp, and we saw a large party of climbers making their way slowly down the glacier in the afternoon, but we left before they got back to camp.
People may have been deterred by the poor condition of the access road or by trip reports about the difficulty of the first crossing of Rocky Creek, which is unbridged. We were forewarned and had prepared for this by bringing hiking poles and shoes for walking in water. We found the tumbling, brown water spread out broadly across the rocky wash. Most of the rivulets were easy to rock-hope across. However, the main cascade was more of a challenge. On the way in we were able to find a log bridge across the deepest part and rock-hop the remaining distance without getting our feet wet. Our leashed dog had no difficulty following us. As expected, the stream volume was much greater when we hiked back in the late afternoon. I changed into water shoes but my partner kept his water-resistant hiking boots on. His turned out to be the better strategy, as the water is numbingly cold. We made it across without having to wade in water more than ankle deep. His feet stayed dry and warm, while I ended up with wet, freezing feet! The take-away is that you can find a way across without wading more than ankle deep if you look carefully, but you will get wet, cold feet if you don’t have water-resistant footwear.
The bridge over the second crossing is in place, so that crossing was no problem and rest of the trail is in great shape. There are the usual eroded, rocky stretches, but no mud. The full autumn color palette has not yet arrived, but the mountain ash, fireweed and blueberries are turning color, so the views in the meadows are lovely. This has clearly been a great season for blueberries and the bushes are loaded with the biggest berries I can recall ever seeing. Those lower down are over-ripe, but the higher you get, the better the berries taste.
Overall, it was a great hiking day in the beautiful North Cascades. The smokey haze stayed well to the south and east, and the morning marine fog and low cloud stayed down in the valleys. Mount Baker was almost cloud-free under a blue sky all afternoon. What a wonderful gift for a mid-September afternoon.
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