Perry Creek — Friday, Jun. 4, 1999

North Cascades > Mountain Loop Highway

I gave up on waiting for a decent weekend and decided to go somewhere on a rainy Saturday morning. Perry Creek was my second choice -- but it turned out to be quite enjoyable. I almost abandoned the hike before it began because there is 8-10 inches of snow on the access road right off of the Mountain Loop highway. However, I decided to hike up to the trail head and see what things were like there (because I didn't think I would go beyond the trail head, I left my ice ax in my vehicle -- big mistake). The access road is about 1 mile long. However, after the first 1/3 of a mile, there was no snow on the road. When I got to the trail head, I saw no snow anywhere -- so I continued. For the first mile, there were several blow downs -- but nothing big and nothing that could not be gotten over, under or around without much problem. The trail crosses several rock fields and goes through several clumps of forest. Across the canyon, a number of ribbon waterfalls can be seen tumbling down (from Mt. Stillaguamish''). At about one mile in, I started to come across snow chutes -- first small and easy to cross and then bigger, steeper, etc. Without the ice ax, I had to skirt several of these and that took a lot of time. With the snow, the trail also became hard to follow, but I was usually able to pick it up after a snow chute. At about 1 1/2 miles, I was on snow more than not (often on pretty steep side slope). The last 1/4 mile plus before the falls is completely snow covered and the trail is just a guess (according to my topo map, everything above 3000 feet was snow covered). Lots of ribbon waterfalls on both sides of the canyon provide some nice distractions. I almost turned around shortly before the Perry Creek Falls -- I didn't know how much further they were and you cannot hear them until you are very close. I was glad I went on -- the falls were very nice -- lots of spring thaw plus the recent rainfall made it impressive. The trail beyond the falls looked pretty buried. Unless you know where the trail is, I wouldn't suggest going further. As far as the trip to Perry Creek Falls, I really enjoyed it -- however, unless you don't mind the snow, you will likely need to wait for at least another month.