Desolation Peak — Saturday, Jun. 15, 2002

North Cascades > North Cascades Highway - Hwy 20

After a long and miserable, yet character building experience of portaging kayaks from Hozomeen to the nearest available put-in (low water conditions) we made our way to our camp at Cat Island. Started the hike from the Ross Lake Spur which shaved off a couple of miles from starting the trail at Lightning Creek. If you follow the Desolation trail straight down to the water on the map, there is a small sign and a very small landing to get up to it. From there the sign said 4.7 miles. The trail was snowfree for the most part, until you hit the meadows around 3 miles or so. Tons of flowers in bloom under the snowline. Bugs were very sparse. The weather cooperated with us and we had incredible views most of the hike up. We ran into quickly melting snow towards the top of the hike in probably 5-6 big patches. An ice-ax would've been worth gold up there. The last quarter to half mile was mostly snow, but the terrain made it much easier than the other patches of snow. The 360 views from the lookout were well worth the hike up. We sat on the sun flooded peak for an hour or so and ate lunch before heading back.