The trail to Pinnacle Lake was straight forward. From there we worked around the lake and hiked up Iodine Gulch which was so much easier with no snow present and just a trickle in the creek like when we attempted this hike last November. No through hike to Pilchuck this time due to a flat tire. There are slippery talus rocks, grass, and a good amount of scree on the trail up the gulch.
At the top of the gulch is a saddle and the trail starts to drop down into a tarn basin. At the first tarn is a trail right that we missed on the way in and instead went straight and took a second fork right a little further. As we ascended, I noticed a piece of metal downslope left that I retrieved and realized it must have been from a plane. We looked upslope and observed more wreckage. Climbing up we found the wreckage of a small plane like a Cessna or Piper Cub. We found a reference to a post of someone finding and reporting it back in 2018. Sadly, we also observed two burnt shoe soles, one a man's boot and the other a woman's pump.
Leaving this area a little further we arrived at a waterfall and checking the map realized we were below Bathtub Lakes, so we climbed the slope and arrived at the lakes. The day was cloudy though, so visibility was limited. From there we hiked around the three lakes and planned our ascent of Herman's Peak.
This whole part of the hike was a bushwhack. We climbed heather and rocks to a knife edge ridge that we traversed to the first bump where we had to butt scoot under tree limbs to a lower point where we could climb up to the higher point. We found a pink heart mylar balloon here and my hiking partner inhaled the helium and gave a hilarious commentary about how we should proceed (see link below). From there it was a pretty open climb to a 5000 ft. peak where we took a break. We thought this was Herman's Peak, but as we descend the sky cleared and we saw the 5000 ft. dome that is the official peak. It would have been a tough climb on wet rock. We chose instead to go down the slope and ended up intersecting the original trail we missed and quickly arrived back at the saddle above Iodine Gulch and hiked out.
So, this was basically a lollipop loop! 8 miles and 3000 feet. The road to the Ashland Lakes cutoff has been greatly improved as well as the Pinnacle Road to the bridge, but after that it's really rutted with intermittent large potholes. Just a few pullouts for passing.
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