North Fork Sauk River — Monday, Jun. 22, 2009

North Cascades > Mountain Loop Highway

Note: the road to the trailhead will be closed June 22 - July 3rd for repair! I believe closed at the Mountain loop highway, cutting off access for a week. With the dreary forecast and still feeling tired I opted for another flat forest hike, this time with Yumi along for the trip. As a side quest we decided to find a wild ginger flower, which neither of us had seen. Unfortunately we didn't bother to research where exactly to find them and what they look like before hand! Despite a helpful trail-register log from Quark (Did you find Jimmy?) we proceeded to call every weird looking little flower a wild ginger simply because we didn't know what it was. In the end we neither saw nor smelled one. The road in is in good shape aside from some potholes and the gaping chasm near the fork for Sloan creek campground. At the turn off from the Mountain loop a sign announces a road closure from June 22 - July 3rd for repairs! Along with the repair theme a lot of recent work has been done along the trail. A large group was camped out at Sloan creek as we walked through. This was at first puzzling since no vehicle was seen anywhere. We assume it was the trail maintenance crew and their van was parked elsewhere. Lots of freshly cut logs and not a single blow down all the way to Red creek, our turn around point. The creek was really raging and there didn't appear to be any easy log to cross. I believe we did spot the new log which is still standing vertically and rooted to the ground. One large snag was cleared of brush and had a red ribbon tied around it. Not far away on a large tree a metal wire loop was tied, I assume to drag the felled log. I wished this was already in place since I'd hoped to reach the shelter further up the trail. Despite no wild ginger findings it was a nice trip. The sun came in and out of the clouds, rain came on and off, but everything was consistently green and pleasant. Photos: http://www.pbase.com/billcat/northforksauk2