North Fork Sauk River, Foam Creek Basin, Glacier Gap & Glacier Peak Meadows — Monday, Aug. 24, 2015

North Cascades > Mountain Loop Highway

Headed out to do White Pass / Pilot Ridge loop for the amazing scenery on a Monday to try for some solitude but finding 17 cars at the Sloan Creek trailhead did not show much potential for the second part. Got a late start to the day and hit the trail at 1:30pm. I had checked reports ahead and the WTA map showed the Red fire perimeter very close. Could not find ANY information online about the fire so called Darrington ranger station in the morning where they assured me that it was a small fire that was terrain limited and posed little danger and they were not closing any trails for it. Hike up is as many describe with great old growth, quite, and uneventful 5 miles. Looked at the Pilot Ridge connection spur and found the usual sloppy campsite in the middle of the trail with a smoldering fire (during active burn ban) of burnt garbage (FYI "foil" packing material is actually mostly plastic and makes quite a few toxic fumes). Shelter is a good place to pick up some water, but don't overfill because there were at least 4 viable trickles above after the PCT junction and before White Pass to top off at. Latrine was nearly full. I made the mistake of picking up 10# of water at the first spot about 1000' below the junction unnecessarily. Climb to White pass was long but not as bad as I had thought from other descriptions. Steepest section is lower and mostly shaded. Mellows out up top when in full sun. Made it to White pass at around 7pm with a lot of photo and water pauses. There was a couple with two tents and another party set up. I started late so set up camp on an impacted spot above the others and had a great quiet sunset. There was a very small trickle of water heading through the camping area that I avoided due to lots of stuff growing in it and in the watershed of the campsite catholes. I picked up water .2 miles before the camping area on the PCT. The two latrines at camp were quite full. There was recent campfire evidence with the burn ban on and a good few piles of liberated toilet paper that I packed out along with an abandoned unfinished roll. Even 10 miles doesn't seem to discourage bad behavior by so many users. A reminder to please pack out all trash including used toilet paper and avoid campfires. I am not quite sure why FS does not put up a sign prohibiting campfires at such an alpine elevation with so little tree litter and so many users at this location. Next day planned a dayhike loop of out Foam Creek trail to the climbers route to Glacier gap via White Chuck Glacier. The new (2014) Green Trails #112 has this shown as a dashed line and I had reviewed the area on Google Earth and it looked doable if there wasn't so much snow shown on current imagery. Was greeted by frost on the ground outside my tent. Hit the trail at 7am and hit the jackpot of scenery along with peace and quiet. Met one solo climber that had summited Glacier the day before and one couple camping at the official end of Foam creek trail on the flats of the ridge. There is another easy campsite about .5 miles from the start of the trail that would be more quiet than White Pass. Also were two water trickles still viable. Bit of a scramble over the ridge after the trail ends but no problem without a 30# pack. Route kind of disappears over the other side in the endlessly diverse rock fields that used to be White Chuck Glacier. There are some cairns and plenty of footprints, but there is no real trail so it can be slow going. Generally obvious with the map guiding the general way. I did run into some amazing glacial quicksand around the drainage areas of the glaciers...my hiking pole sunk in 18" at one point so de beware and stay clear of the terminus areas. Stepped on a few rocks that immediately sank 6" into glacial cement. Landscape is amazing moonscape with very little vegetation except for microscopic plants and some bursting flowers. Lower saddle (7200') at Glacier Gap has a bunch of flat camping areas for climbers with constructed rock walls. Great views East but you have another dusty and steep climb to 7500' to get the full view of Glacier Peak and Suiattle Glacier. Totally worth it. I could see another solo climber coming down the Cool Glacier from Disappointment Peak in the afternoon. Made it here at 11:45 with lots of photo stops and GPS said 5.1 miles w ~2500' climbing (a few 300-500' downs). Good clean water coming out of cliff after White Chuck Glacier. Return route was to head back down to White Chuck Glacier and head to the boomerang shaped lake (6443') and outflow creek to marked Glacier Peak Meadows and follow drainage down to connect with PCT after Red Pass at camp area at 5500'. Lakes and views were great. Creek out of meadows provided a wonderful waterfall shower venue and all solitude to Red Pass. Route came and went a few times but with great visibility I could always see the PCT climbing up to Red Pass in the distance and never really ran into any trouble spots. Got to the PCT again and was sorry to be back on a well used trail with lots of ruts. Looks to me like horses are using the trail here even when not allowed. Climbed Red Pass at 4:50pm about 6.2 miles from Glacier Gap with -2000/+1000' and amazing views of Wolverine fire smoke cloud blowing up to tens of thousands of feet. Turn the corner and was way too close to the Red Creek fire actively torching trees not too far away. Two miles back to camp at White pass had a new party there and the same two tents previously had now moved onto pristine meadows down lower (leaving more of a trace in a high use area). Smoke started moving in that night and it was much warmer. Woke the next morning to some blistered feet, more smoke, and not much energy so decided to hike back out and skip Blue lake/ Pilot ridge since the loop the day before was so spectacular. Highly recommend this backcountry excursion in the area for those into getting off the beaten path.