Independence and North Lakes — Saturday, Oct. 12, 2002

North Cascades > Mountain Loop Highway

This was my first time on this trail and I was pleasantly surprised. The road to the trailhead is in very good condition and could easily be driven with a passenger car. The trail to Independence lake has almost no net elevation gain but you probably gain and lose about 300 ft getting there. Some of the Mountain Hemlock on this segment are of impressive size. I counted 380 rings on a modest size 3 foot diameter wind fall that was crosscut for the trail. The lake is in a very scenic forested setting. Just beyond the lake the trail starts going up at a pretty steep incline. About 1/2 way up you pass by one of the biggest Alaska Cedars that I've seen. When you get to the first pass turn right which first traverses the ridge a short distance then skirts around the edge of a small pond. Just beyond the pond follow the difficult to see trail that goes up along the right side of the rock fall. The trail soon becomes obvious again after 30 ft. I missed this turn off the first time around and ended up at a nice little lake about 100 yard down from the junction. Just beyond the 2nd pass are filtered views down to North Lake below and nice views of Glacier Peak and Mt Pugh to the east. The views are improved only modestly by scrambling up to peak 5072 to the northwest of the pass. Round trip is about 6 mi and 1400 ft net. Total elevation gain with ups and downs is about 1800 ft. The trail is a bit rocky but overall is in very good condition. It looks like WTA installed some very nice water bars all along the way to preserve tread. I cleared a few of them of debris.