Horseshoe Basin — Thursday, Jul. 1, 1999

North Cascades > Pasayten

My wife and I decided to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary backpacking to Horseshoe Basin in the Pasayten. Weather was a toss up so we decided to be prepared for anything. It's exactly 303 miles from our home in Maple Valley to the Iron Gate Trailhead elevation 6,100'. The last six miles is on an unmaintained forest road #500, and I wouldn't recommend anything but four wheel drive. Expect to see a lot of deer at Hodges Horse Pasture and watch out for all the grazing cattle, they seem to think they have the right of way. The road to Iron Gate was free of snow and there was only a few patches of snow all the way to Sunny Pass, elevation 7,200'. Occasional snow covered the trail from Sunny to Horseshoe Pass where we camped on 7/1/99 and most of the campsites were open. Partly sunny weather started to turn a little darker in the afternoon. My NOAA radio promised clearing skies at 6:00pm but it started to snow around midnight and we woke to three inches of snow and about a twenty five degree temperature. NOAA now promised more snow and thunderstorms so my wife and I reluctantly decided to cut our visit short and hiked out at 9:30am in the falling snow. We didn't get an opportunity to explore or scramble up any of the 8,000' peaks in the area. We look forward to coming back in the near future and revisiting a very beautiful meadowland.