Rock Creek — Saturday, Jul. 16, 2011

Central Cascades > Stevens Pass - East

This is a long forest hike on a trail hung on the side of the creek canyon. We got out ahead of the rainy weather, but it caught up to us about 3 miles in. The lower trail is in mostly good condition, the USFS has been working on the trail. Past 3 miles the trail is heavily trenched and eroded in places and there are numerous blowdowns, some easy, some hard to get around.There is a massive pile of avalanche debris (snow, branches and stacks of entire trees) at the creek crossing at about 4 miles. The crossing can be made safely, but requires some route finding to relocate the trail on the other side (coming and going). After puddle splashing in the rain to the first ford at 6.5 miles and getting totally soaked in the overgrown sections, we camped in the forest near the ford. The creek was running too high to wade, so we day hiked cross country about a mile through mostly open forest on Sunday to Rock Creek Meadows and on above to the next meadow opening where we turned around. Above the meadow there are snow patches on the trail in the forested sections. The main meadow is about a week away from full flowering. With all the blowdown, big avi pile,muddy spots and the high creek levels this hike is not an easy straightforward walk yet.