I was in Leavenworth for the weekend and looking for somewhere to get ~20 trail miles in a day. I came up with an cool loop: Head up icicle Creek trail until it's junction with the trail to frosty pass, take this up past Lake Margaret and then go tag Snowgrass mountain (if conditions and timing allowed). An alternate to tagging Snowgrass involves staying on the trail, Past Lake Grace & Upper Florence lake all the way to lake Edna. Along the way if so inclined one could gain the ridge to Ladies peak. After Edna, Cape Horn and Grindscone mountain both offer a quick side trip for a couple more peaks. From there I would descend via the chatter creek trail back to the road and have ~3 miles along the road back to my car.
This plan was great in theory, but the night prior it rained all night and even snowed a decent amount at higher elevations, not to mention extra troubles...
I had used caltopo to plan a route which involved taking a trail that I guess is decommissioned. Close to mile 23 of Icicle Creek is where it cuts off the main trail. I missed it the first time but found it to be blocked with numerous logs on second inspection. I followed the faint trail for a ways past a nice looking campsite and then it ended at the river. I found a large log to cross on upstream which deposited me in brush. I quickly found the faint old trail and began tracking it. Sadly it entered an extremely brushy sections with devil's club and looked miserable so I decided to backtrack back to the main trail. I continued up Icicle creek and planned to use a different access trail that appears on the USFS 7.5' topo. After a several minutes of searching I was unable to locate this trail either. Not seeing any other trails on my map which provided access to frosty pass I resigned myself to running as far as I wanted along the Icicle creek trail. I continued along the trail and crossed over the creek on a nice bridge to an awesome looking campsit. Lo and behold a couple minutes later there was a sign pointing right to frosty pass/wildhorse creek. I had wasted some time and mileage, and this route was much less direct than my plan but I figured I still had a chance at completing my loop. The trail was decent at first but the farther I went the more overgrowth on both sides of the trail. I was wearing shorts and my legs were constantly getting soaked by the wet brush. I pushed on for quite a ways, to ~5.3k or so but I was getting cold and wet and there was starting to be snow on the brush as well as much more at higher elevations. With my route traveling above 7k at points I figured it was time to call it a day.
I headed back to the junction with Icicle creek trail. to get a few extra miles in I continued along Icicle creek trail for a short ways before it also got so incredibly brushy that it was time to turn around again. Past the junction both trails get brushy and seem to be much better suited for a horse than a human, especially when it's wet.
It was a disappointing day but I still got my 20 miles in on the trail.
Perhaps this would be a good loop when things are drier and for someone wearing pants. Not sure how problematic the snow would be up high at the moment as I turned around at 5.3k.
The Icicle creek trail is in good condition aside from puddles every so often. You can step around them on the outskirts of the trail pretty easily.
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