North Fork Sauk River — Friday, Nov. 15, 2013

North Cascades > Mountain Loop Highway

A winter weather warning was issued about a day before we were going to hike the North Fork Sauk Trail. Saturday morning, we set out for the Verlot Public Service Center anyway. The man at the counter didn't know how the roads would be. He said one guy had tried to go up the Mountain Loop Highway that morning, but turned back at Barlow Pass. We headed towards the pass in hopes that we wouldn't be forced to turn back. The worst part of the highway was at Barlow Pass, but it wasn't too bad at all. Road 49 off the highway was in good shape, except for a tree that had fallen across the road. After ten or fifteen minutes with a hatchet, we were able to pass through. Snow was falling when we started hiking at about 1PM. Our goal was to get to Mackinaw Shelter for an overnight stay, but we didn't know what to expect on the trail since it's about a 1000 foot gain from the trailhead. The forest is absolutely beautiful, especially covered in snow. I imagine this could possibly be the last weekend of the year to hike this without snowshoes. At times, in the thickest parts of the forest, there was no snow on the actual trail. In other places, there were a lot of puddles. But mostly we were trampling through snow (without snow shoes), especially through the clearings. We crossed several streams with water across the trail and quite a few bridges. We reached Mackinaw Shelter at 4:30, just as it was getting dark. Snow was coming down hard. Needless to say, it was freezing. We cooked dinner and tried to start a fire with some of the wood that someone had left in the shelter, but it was just too wet. With nothing else to do, we got in the tent around 6PM and stayed there until about 7:30AM. Loooonnng night. All night, we could hear wind gusts coming down off the mountains and then hitting the trees above us. That was followed by clumps of snow falling off of tree branches and pounding the ground around us. We woke up to a beautiful winter wonderland. The river is right there for water. We started back towards the trailhead a little after 9:30AM. There was a lot more snow on the ground this day. Snow was about 1.5' in places, making it difficult to hike through. It was an awesome hike though, especially in that weather. Arrived back at the truck around 1PM and headed back towards the Mountain Loop Highway. We did stop off and hike the short trail down to Nork Fork Sauk Falls, which I highly recommend. Instead of going up Barlow Pass again, we went towards Darrington and roads were great. I would love to come back in summer and continue up towards the PCT and beyond.