North Fork Sauk River — Thursday, Jul. 21, 2016

North Cascades > Mountain Loop Highway

I camped at the Sloan Creek Campground the night before for this trip. . I set the droid phone alarm to go off at 5:30 AM and was hiking by 6:20 AM. The trail up the N Fork Sauk river was nice, but had its share of ups and downs. After about 5.3 miles a very ramshackle shelter was passed (on river side of trail). Then the trail climbs up thru forest, and weaves in and out of an avalanche chute featuring mid size vegetation like alder, ash but also wild strawberry , huckleberries and thimbleberries. Higher up, meadows with many blooming wildflowers were reached. I saw many blue moths (Lycaean Blue), species ?) even small swarms of them to add to the beauty. I continued along the traverse until intersecting the PCT. I took the PCT on its southbound direction to White Pass. From there I climbed in the basin SE of the White Mountain summit, got tired of steep slippery vegetation, so I scrambled up some rocks to the ridge, and an easy walk to the summit. Mostly clear on the summit but a few gathering clouds. Of course great views of Glacier Peak, Sloan Peak and many other mountains. White Mountain, at least this time of year is much more green than white. I returned to the trail by descending the SW ridge a couple hundred feet then directly down to the trail near the junction. Trip back to trailhead not too eventful - saw one small garter snake (Also a marmot near the summit of White Mountain). A little before 5:00 PM, I began to hear thunder above and behind me up by the White Pass area. Eventually rain began to fall but since it was warm rain, I didn't mind. Returned to the trailhead by 7:10 PM - nearly 13 hours on the trail. The trailhead was full of parked cars but I only saw 2 people on the entire trip, down on the PCT when I was climbing White Mountain.