August 12, 2019
Day One (8/9/19) - Four of us took the Lady of the Lake and got dropped off at Prince Creek trailhead. We hiked leisurely to More Point and settled for first night. The campsite was far from the creek so we got water from the lake.
Day Two (8/10/19) – We followed Fish Creek Trail and continued to North Fork Fish Creek Trail then turned left to Chelan Summit Trail. We camped at Camp Comfort. Water was plenty from the creek below the campsite. Signs of animal gathering at the Camp site were visible, but we didn’t see any.
Day Three (8/11/19) – We continued on Chelan Summit Trail to Juanita Lake Camp, the only campsite that we needed a permit from North Cascade National Park issued by Lake Chelan National Forest Ranger Station. There was not really running water at Juanita Lake Camp as the little creek was drying out but enough for survival for animals and humans.
We did not see any hikers or backpackers on the trail in the first 4 days. Surprisingly, the trail was quite visible all the way. There was only a short portion of North Fork Fish Creek was somewhat overgrown, where we got some salmon berries
Climbing Reynolds Peak
Day Four (8/12/19) –Sung and I got up at 3:00am and left Camp at 4:00am to climb Reynolds Peak. Our plan was to cover the main trail in the dark, then scramble up Reynolds Peak by daylight time. Just about 20 minutes from Juanita Camp, we reached War Creek Pass junction. After three days of backpacking, some of the details of Reynolds Peak route were fading away from my memory. We turned right at the junction and hiked down the valley for about an hour. While waiting for Sung to cross a big log with thick branches I looked at my GPS. Apparently the Biulder Creek Trail was way up and we were deep down in the valley. We hiked all the way back, worst of all, all uphill. By the time we reached Reynolds Camp, it was about 9:00am. From Reynolds Camp we were trying to find a booth path to Reynolds and saw none. I recalled one of the reports on WTA the author mentioned ‘following the creek’. We hiked past the creek about 100 yards and still did not see any booth path, so we decided to start at an open spot not too far from the creek. We tried to stay close to the creek while taking advantage of the ridge as bushes were thinner. After a short while, we reached a meadow and if I remember it correctly Camel Humps was partially in view. We felt good! We took a short break then proceeded further up where we saw a beautiful peak in the front of us and Camel Humps was on the right. We looked at our GPS and thought the peak in front of us was Reynolds Peak. We followed the creek (no water at the upper part) until we reached the boulder. From the distance, we saw two potential routes - climb up on the far right and traverse back along the ridge or follow the gully. We decided to check out the gully first. We started climbing up the gully. It was extremely difficult to climb up, no stable foot and hand holds. Near the end of the narrow gully, I was struggling to make my last move to safety. I pressed my left knee hard against the dirt covered rock and somehow pulled myself up. Then Sung’s turn, no difference; but she somehow made it to safety. I didn’t clarify with Sung, but we were apparently at a smaller and shorter gully. The one we saw from the distance was the bigger and longer one in the front of us. We decided to climb down to that big and long gully. It was less steep and climbing up was pretty easy. We took a short break then climbed up quite a bit on stable rocks. It got steeper and we started to wonder if it was class 3. We didn’t have helmets. We also got confused if it was Reynolds. My Gaia Topo map showed Reynolds was to the north at 8300 ft.; and my Gaia USGS Topo showed two Reynolds Peaks and this one was at 8500 ft. It was already 4-ish in the afternoon. We were about 100-150 ft. from the summit. We decided to climb down. Back down to boulder, we looked at our GPS map again. At this point we thought the peak was not Reynolds. We decided to follow the route that I had plotted. We climbed up the ridge to the left of the peak and saw another peak. We said huh here it is… We summited the peak. It was mostly class 2; the last portion to the summit was about class 3-. The view was very good, especially looking at the peak that we had just climbed.
We got back to Camp about 9-ish pm. Trang and Saphina did a short day hike on Biullder Creek Trail. Saphina was somewhat worried about us, but Trang told her it happened to me all the time.
Day Five (8/15/19) – Hiking down to Stehekin from Juanita Lake wasn’t bad at all. We got to the dock by the time the Lady Express was blowing her horn. We upgraded our tickets and jumped on.
More peaks to climb, I couldn’t find time to write a report until now (10/18/19) sitting in the Discount Tire store waiting...
Summary: Depends on which direction you are coming from - If you are coming from Juanita Lake, hike past Reynolds Campsite until you see a water running creek, then follow this creek up. We stayed on the left and away from the creek. On the way down, we decided stay close to the creek, and it was more open in fact. If you are coming on the opposite direction of Juanita Lake/War Creek Pass, you will see the creek before Reynolds Camp. Taking a look at Reynolds Peak again, it appears that the one we gave up was the right one; and the one we summited was Reynolds Peak (north). I will come back, hopefully next year. I will bring helmet, perhaps rope and harness as well.
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