Horseshoe Basin, Boundary Trail #533. 8/4/99 to 8/7/99. Irongate trailhead to Cathedral Lakes is about 26 miles. FS road 39 from near Tonasket is paved. Irongate road #3900-500, turns off right, is a rough, rocky road but quite passable by high clearance vehicles. Trailhead elevation 5800 ft. The trail (an old road) first heads downhill to junction with Clutch Creek trail, ½ mile. It is then fairly level till it crosses a side stream, then starts climbing gently. At 3 miles is a beautiful side hill meadow which was full of lupine and paintbrush. To here, the trail is through lodgepole pine forest. The trail continues through mixed forest and meadow before opening up below Sunny Pass, elevation 7200 ft., 5 miles. From hear to Cathedral lakes the trail ranges from about 6700 ft. to a high of 7600 ft at Cathedral Pass. The trail was in good condition, no snow, with gentle grades. There was water from side streams about every 2-3 miles, sometimes more often. There were a few patches of snow on the mountains around. From Sunny Pass the trail contours through open meadow to Horseshoe Pass 7000 ft., 6.2 miles and a small stream, there is another stream in about ¼ mile. It continues to Louden Lake at 7.2 miles. It then heads around the north side of Rock Mt. to another small basin of meadow and trees. From there it traverses around a ridge in mostly open pine forest with some grass, berry bushes and wildflowers, to a saddle with a small pond to the south of the trail, 9.8 miles. The trail then climbs through open forest and meadow to a ridge of Haig Mt., which had pretty heather meadows with scattered larch and pine. It then traversed down to a crossing of a couple of creeks with camps. There is another camp at the stream which flows off Haig Mt. toward Teapot Dome. The basin SW of Teapot dome and onto Bauerman ridge is quite pretty meadow land. There is a side ridge off Bauerman Ridge at about the level of the trail. As the trail goes over the ridge there is a small pond about 1/10 mile left along the ridge crest, with a faint foot path to it. There was also a small stream and camps just before the ridge crest. From this ridge crest the trail drops to Scheelite Pass (pine woods, no water). The trail traverses into a small basin west of Scheelite Pass with a small stream, possible camps. It then traverses through open pine forest to Tungsten Mine. There the trail splits, apparently the main trail angles left, downhill. I went straight, which shortly lead to cabins remaining from the Tungsten mine. They are being maintained to some degree. There are many trails in this area which are confusing, continuing straight seemed to be heading in the right direction. After about 1/10 mile there was another junction, with a trail angling in from the back left, apparently this was the main trail again. Angling to the right the trail continued toward the headwater basin of Tungsten Creek. Continuing across this junction was a blocked off trail with a sign ""trail not maintained, not recommended for stock"". The Boundary Trail continues into the headwater basin of Tungsten Creek, crosses the creek and climbs to Apex Pass about 7300 ft. (the 7800 ft on the Green Trails map 1996 looks wrong). This section is mostly hillside meadow and rock with scattered trees. Apex pass is a beautiful open saddle with tundra like meadows and scattered larch and pine. The trail traverses into the headwater basin of Cathedral Creek, crosses it, possible camp, and starts climbing to Cathedral Pass in mostly open heather and berry meadow. From Cathedral Pass the view west is down on the open basin of Upper Cathedral Lake. There are meadows, larch and pine trees around Upper Cathedral Lake, quite pretty. Amphitheater Mountain still has some large patches of snow on it. There is a smaller lake, which surprisingly does not show on the USGS quadrangle map, in the open meadow above Upper Cathedral Lake with smooth granite slabs separating it from the country below. From here you can look down on Lower Cathedral Lake, which appears to be in the woods.

The drive to the trailhead is very long - over 300 miles from Seattle and 7 hours to cover it. The Iron Gate road to the parking lot is rough but passable for passenger cars. It's not a matter of having 4WD - you simply need high clearance. Drive slowly and pick your line carefully and you'll make it. Hike through forest on an old dirt road for about 2 hours to reach Sunny Pass. Patchy snow apppears from there, but it's never a problem. You might want to bring gaiters for the mud, however! Yes, there's mud but that means there's also plenty of water, and plenty of wildflowers. This is easily one of the best displays in the state right now - meadows are literally covered in white, yellow and purple. I climbed Armstrong Mtn. (easy w/topo & compass) to a monument on a false summit at the Canadian border. There's a clearcut through the forest in the valley that marks the border. It's interesting for a minute and then becomes annoying. It's impossible to photograph the peaks to the west without the border slash in the shot. Views are great nonetheless. Views into the Horseshoe Basin south towards Louden Lake, Pick Peak and Windy Peak are best from about halfway up Armstrong. Overall, this is a great area to do a remote, multi-day hike. It's a bit far for a one-nighter.

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.

We arrived at Irongate trailhead to find a parking lot filled with enough horse trailers to move a small cavalry regiment. The trail, wide enough for chariots, was easy walking up to Sunny Pass. Actual distance seemed shorter than reported in various guides. There were several large horse encampments in the basin. Fortunately, the area is large enough for dispersed camping and there are numerous established sites. Loudon Lake still contains a fair amount of water. There was a very large herd of domestic sheep pastured in the valley below Armstrong Mtn and Arnold Peak.