This trip was an overnight backpacking trip starting from North Fork Sauk TH and lollipop looped clockwise via white pass and upper blue lake. Day 1: TH to Upper Blue Lake via White Pass: 18.5 mi / 6319 gain. Day 2: Upper Blue Lake to TH via Pilot Ridge Trail: 10.76 mi / 1,493 gain.
TL;DR:
If you're looking for solitude, skip. If you're looking for a really pristine and well-maintained trail with some beautiful views, this one's for you. Trail is in excellent condition. Pilot Ridge is a bit more rugged with a handful of blowdowns and a river crossing. Upper Blue lake is beautiful but mosquitos were annoying. Mostly exposed trail once you start the climb up, shaded and forested by the river.
Road Conditions: Paved until you hit the gravel road to the TH on Mountain Loop HWY. There are lots of pot holes, but nothing that going slow and carefully wouldn't be able to manage. There's some campsite/picnic tables at the TH as well as a very clean well stocked pit toilet. Parking area was nearly full when we arrived at 8:30am Saturday morning.
Trail Conditions:
All the trails were in great condition. A little brushy or drainage brush in those areas, meadows were blooming so lots of wildflowers. Pilot Ridge trail was more notably rugged with a few blowdowns and just general terrain was less hard packed and wide, more rocky or loose in the meadows. PCT section was great and plenty of views. Bald Eagle was a climb up, but nice views, took the shortcut trail to the Upper Lakes which was steep and rocky on both sides but doable and beautiful! Overall there were a handful of snow patches still that you can see are melting out below, so use common sense and cross accordingly. Some of them you could navigate above or below if too thin.
Note: we did not go up to Johnson Mountain, but we could see the trail heading up to the summit and looked clearly defined and free of both snow and blowdowns, so figured I'd note that here.
Animals/Bugs: no animal sightings aside from squirrels and chipmunks and birds. Did see some bear scat, but no bear sighting. Heard marmots and grouse, but harder to spot them. The mosquitos and bugs didn't feel too bad while moving on trail, but definitely at Upper Blue Lake, they were annoying enough that you didn't really just want to sit out all evening. I felt the bugs and mosquitos were worse on Pilot Ridge Trail as well, but second day was also a little more humid in general.
Water sources: from TH to White pass you've got plenty. It's a bit dry once you start the ascent up, but then there's some really nice flows near White Pass. It's pretty dry from Indian Gap to Upper Blue Lake as well. There are some significant snow melt streams still happening if you needed. Plenty of water at the lake, but about 6.5 miles were dry from the lake heading towards the TH on Pilot Ridge, so would be the same heading out. There's a really nice waterfall stream - that would be your last source before the lake if going counter-clockwise.
Other: there were a lot of people summiting Glacier peak who use that trail up to white pass, so camp area was crowded when we passed by. Also, camping at upper blue lake was pretty packed as well. It's a beautiful trail, so I can see why it's popular, but if you are looking for more solitude, either consider another route, or pick a dry camp spot at one of the passes or ridges that have room for single tent. They're equally beautiful and would have more quiet. Only other note would be bring sun protection, as once you make the climb up you're mostly exposed and out the sun.
Happy Trails!
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