Main Fork Dosewallips River, Upper Gray Wolf River to Gray Wolf Pass, Cameron Pass, Cameron-Lost Primitive & Cedar Lake Way — Thursday, Oct. 26, 2017

Son Robin and I took advantage of unexpectedly compliant weather to visit the main fork of the Dosewallips, Lost Pass, Cameron Pass, Gray Wolf Pass, and Cedar Pass October 26-29. It still is possible, but cumbersome, to mountain bike with full packs the 6-7 miles from the Dosewallips Road washout to the Dosewallips trailhead in the national park. This mostly involved 2 hours of pushing the bikes uphill with occasional bicycling on the way in, but about 1 hour of coasting with brakes on during the return. There are more washouts and potholes to contend with than in the past, and I wouldn't want to bike in muddy conditions, but eliminating three hours of road walking on the way out was worth the tradeoff.

After stashing our bikes, we hiked the 11 miles to Bear Camp, where we settled in. The trail up the main fork of the Dosewallips is in fine shape the entire way. Day two we hiked up to Dose meadows, Lost Pass, and Cameron Pass. There were snow patches near Lost Pass and the north-facing slopes of the pass. The trail was generally snow-free to Cameron Pass, but the first stretch down into Upper Cameron Basin would require some attention on the steep snow fields. For better views, we hiked up the small peak to the northwest of the pass, where Hayden Pass, the Thousand Acre Meadow, Mt. Anderson, Mt. Olympus, Obstruction Point, Grand Pass, and Mt. Rainier were all visible.

Day three, we backtracked to the Gray Wolf Pass trail juncture, and wended our way to Gray Wolf Pass. There were a few patches of snow, and about a dozen blown down trees, but none required much to circumvent. The trail to the pass and the pass itself have excellent views toward Mystery and Deception, and to the ridges south and north. Since we had time, we opted to descend to the small tarn north of the pass. This required kicking steps in occasional steep snow for the first few hundred yards. At the northern end of the tarn, we picked up the faint use trail northwest to the pass above Cedar Lake. The trail first ascends steeply but soon passes through delightful small basins with streams and tarns. Here we saw several water ouzels foraging in the cold waters, and one bald eagle, patrolling as if on cue.The path disappears and reappears in the basins, but generally tracks to the obvious low point in the ridge above surprisingly large Cedar Lake. Given the prettiness of the area, it's understandable that some would decide to use this detour down the Gray Wolf, but we retraced our steps back to the pass, and down to camp.

Day four we hiked and biked out, accumulating the following tally of mammals sighted: one other hiker above Deception Camp, two chipmunks, zero bear, and sadly, no pika or marmots. Come spring, the upper Dosewallips will be more busy.