This loop involved a 3 mile road walk from the Lost Creek Ridge trailhead to the North fork of the Sauk trailhead. We had originally planned on starting after work on Friday and doing the 3 mile road walk and the 5 mile hike to the Mackinaw shelter but horrible labor day traffic lead to getting to the Sauk trailhead around 6pm. We only got 4 miles down the trail before the sun set. We set up camp next to a bridge with a few nice campsites that other people were camping at.
We woke up at 5am the next morning and completed the last mile to the Mackinaw shelter in the dark. It was forecasted as a 90 degree day so we wanted to get up to Red pass as early as possible to avoid the heat. The switchbacks were a nice easy grade and we hit the PCT Red pass/White pass junction and then Red pass in no time where we got our first views of Glacier peak. There was surprisingly little snow on the mountain. We considered going up into Foam basin but since we had gone there last year and we noticed a couple of small tarns on the map next to the White Chuck Cinder Cone we decided to go in that direction instead. We followed the PCT until it got near the Cinder Cone and then went left off trail for a couple hundred feet until we reached the Cinder cone and a beautiful small lake sized tarn with large flat sandy shores. We summited the Cinder cone (a super easy walk up), swam in the tarn (still pretty cold!) and relaxed on the sandy shores for a while. Since it was still pretty early in the day and we had energy we decided to continue on rather than camp at the gorgeous tarn. Another group had arrived to camp in that area too so it didn’t feel quite as secluded anymore.
The terrain looked easy on the other side of the Cinder cone so we chose to go up and over the Cinder cone, trying to see if we could cut off a section of the PCT, bypassing Glacier meadows camp, and rejoin it further down. This was a huge mistake and lead to a lot of unnecessary steep bushwhacking! We eventually met back up with the trail in a nice meadow area. The large and small biting flies were out in force in this area so we hurried on. We passed lots of nice campsites for the first mile or two and then they disappeared for a while as the trail started to descend. We found a nice cluster of campsites next to a creek and bridge about 3-4 miles away from the Lost creek ridge junction, similar to our first nights campsite, and chose to camp there.
We started around 7am the next morning and continued on to the junction for lost creek ridge. The trail gets pretty muddy in places and you can smell sulfur from one of the creeks. I also got a nasty horse or deerfly bite in that area. There is a sign at the first junction saying that the trail is abandoned and to continue on to the “new” trail 7/10’s of a mile away so that was what we did. The “new” trail going down to the river was very eroded on a steep hillside, there was one section of it that had completely washed away! Luckily that section was a switchback so we didn’t have to figure out how to get around it. There were also tons of really bad blowdowns to crawl over and under while trying not to slip and slide down the hillside. We finally got down to the river. The trail gets very faint at the end and I imagine it would be very difficult to find if you were going the opposite direction. We chose to switch to camp shoes and ford the river. It was pretty swift and about thigh high water but it was manageable as long as you go slow. We had to use our ruffwear harness with a handle to get our 40lb dog across it.
After we crossed the river we searched around for the Kennedy hot springs. There were cairns all over the area and we followed them for about 100ft up river to the hot springs. They were a bubbling nasty algae mess! And about luke warm. Although nasty they were worth checking out. We walked back to where we crossed the river and followed cairns and a few orange markers back into the woods. The trail is extremely faint at first and angles right before becoming more defined and going straight up to lake Byrne. There were some more blowdowns to climb over but not as bad as the trail going down to the river.
It was another 90 degree day and it really slowed our progress as the trail became more open as it got closer to lake Byrne. Blueberries were everywhere! We eventually popped out by the outlet and got our first sight of the enormous beautiful lake. We ran straight down to the water to swim and fish. The water was still pretty cold but felt amazing after such a hot hike and John caught 5 fish within a hour. There were a couple campsites but they were all high up above the water so after a few hours at the lake we decided to continue on to camp lake. The only 2 good sites were taken at Camp lake so we camped on a flat spot next to the outlet.
The next morning we made blueberry pancakes with our skillet and the wild blueberries (delicious!) and then started down the Lost creek ridge trail at around 7:30am. We passed Hardtack lake which reminded me of boiling lake on the golden lakes loop out by Twisp. Not nearly as epic and nice as Byrne or Camp lakes but still a nice place to relax and cool off. It had a large flat sandy shores area, similar to the White Chuck Cinder Cone tarn, that would have been good to camp at. The lost creek ridge trail goes up and down for miles and there are only a few small trickling creeks to get water from. We chose to go off trail and take the trail that goes up 200ft to Sunup lake to get water and swim one more time before we started our decent. There are 1-2 nice spots to camp at Sunup lake, if you are camping in the area I’d recommend going to down Round lake which is much larger and more beautiful than Sunup, we camped down there 2 years ago when we did Breccia peak.
We passed quite a few people on the long decent and finally reached the trailhead around 2pm. Now it was time for the 3 mile road walk back to the car. We hadn’t realized that the road goes slightly uphill the whole time, ugh! The gravel road was also much harder on our feet than the soft dirt trail had been. It was a miserable 3 miles back to the car. After we got back and started driving back down the road we noticed a couple we had passed a day ago who were also walking the road that had done the loop in the opposite direction. We picked both of them up and drove them to their car to spare them the road walk. I would definitely recommend getting the road walk out of the way at the beginning if you can! Other than that this was a great loop with beautiful lakes and awesome close up views of Glacier peak.
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