Bedal Basin — Saturday, Jun. 27, 2009

North Cascades > Mountain Loop Highway

A great early-summer hike. This trail has everything -- everything Mina and I love, anyway: Steep knarly old road to the trailhead (discourages crowds even on nice Saturdays); deep cool ancient forest to admire with nice open breaks often enough to get some views; good tread most of the way, but narrow and muddy occasionally and not "improved;" steep, then gradual then steep again for variety. And then some really spicy excitement at the end, where an enormous landslide some years back came off the face of Sloan with what must have been the rumble of 50 freight trains and obliterated whatever trace of the trail led up the final half-mile to the basin, leaving us to pick our way upward and look for tracks and sniff the wind and otherwise engage in that peculiar black art known as "route-finding." There's a 4x4 planted against the downhill side of a boulder at the start of this, just waiting for a sign to say "Wherever you go, find this when you come back down." We angled left, up the slide chute, which looked better than crossing Bedal Creek into a jumble of brush that would scratch you up good. The bootmarks we found cross the creek in the slide gully below the snow-bridge, angle up the right-hand embankment, then disappear into the steep woods. OK, time to turn on my GPS. It revealed that we were already almost as high up as the basin, and would probably find it if we traversed to the right (southeast). The woods were steep but not too bad, and we ran into some fairly good sized snowpatches, but it was soft and slushy and easier than climbing over downed trees and brush. A short ways further and sure enough some huge boulders appeared, greeting us to the lip of The Basin! At around 5,000 ft., Bedal Basin is one big solid snow bowl at the moment, and quite spectacular. Will make a note to start earlier next time and try to make it up to the low spot in the ridge above for a view into the next valley. The first skeeters buzzed in. Mina was bushed, so we headed back down, and stayed more in the woods, discovering an eden-like mossy slope with a braided stream running through a 20ft.-wide swath of shaded green carpeting. We crossed a branch of Bedal Creek, then popped-out into the avalanche/landslide channel and hugged the west rim until it seemed safe to cross below the snowbridge. Found the trail at the 4x4 and enjoyed the forest, flowers and occasional views on the way down. Did I mention Mt. Baker from the upper slopes? Paused just west of Darrington on the drive back to watch the evening light rise up Whitehorse.