Buck Creek Pass, High Pass, Napeequa River & Little Giant Pass — Saturday, Jul. 27, 2013

Central Cascades > Stevens Pass - East

Without reading WTA trip reports for beta (why I don't know), I was intrigued with the idea of seeing if I could connect hiking trails Napeequa River to Buck Creek via High Pass. Besides, I needed a solid overnight trip as training for an upcoming multiday trip in Wind River Range. With an early start I made it up Little Giant pass (several blow downs still), near the top I meet one hiker who had camped at top of (Little Giant) pass the night before. He has said he didn't want to hike down to Napeequa River because he knew he would have to hike back out...that started getting me to question my ambitious choices. Anyways I continued down to Napeequa River and hiked along the trail always cognizant of my time, never really taking breaks. Once at the junction to start hike up to high pass I didn't see any signs of trail up, but there could be, I just didn't spend enough time to investigate. So with 50 of my closest biting fly friends I started the brutal bushwhack up. At 5,600 or so the flies decided to leave me along with the stubborn cottonwood trees, and I was now really starting to enjoy the continued hike up to High Pass. At this point I had a lot of adrenaline going as I still did not know what the snow was like above nor had I done enough beta research to know if high pass was even cross able. While sorting out my mixed emotions of excitement, adrenaline, and self doubt, as luck would have it, I came across a hiker coming down from High Pass. He was able to confirm best route up and that it was possible but steep in sections. This eased my mind a bit, but I still wanted to get up and over while the snow was still soft. After getting to top of High Pass (and off snow) I was relieved to see trail! My anxiety reduced, I really started to take in the views and reflect on this epic long day of hiking. Camping above Buck Creek Pass near a water source I had the wildflowers and views to myself. Glacier Peak was looking incredible. The following day hike out was uneventful other then my body starting to revolt to the strain of 2 days of solid hiking. Made it to Trinity trailhead and bike ride back to car. Solid!