Carne Mtn. & Beyond :

Sorry this posting is a week and half late, but hey, I've been busy!

No one else has posted this area yet, so thought my trip would be useful to someone.

Road is fine to Trinity t trailhead (Entiat area)

We chose this area because of threat of Thunderstorms on western slopes, so we tried to go as far east as we could.

The trail is in good shape, but with numerous(18+) blowdowns to navigate. This will keep pack animals out of there until cleared. ( no horse poop!)

We reached the saddle above the basin, and because of threatening clouds and far off thunder, decided against putting the tent on the exposed ridge. We hunted around & found a somewhat lower depression, just to make us feel better.;)

A short stroll up to Carne took care of peak bagging. Around dinner time, the thunder became decidedly louder,and as is so often the case in the mountains, the sky opened up & we tested our rain gear for a while. Thunder & lightening is ALWAYS exciting in the mountains, you can 'feel' the electricity in the air. Thankfully it stopped as abruptly as it began , and we enjoyed a dry evening & night.

The next morning was socked in, but we decided to walk on for a few hours to see how far & how close we could get to the flanks of Mt. Maude. The Rock Creek Trail continues over the saddle & just before it turns down the valley there is an intersection with another trail(unnamed on most maps) that heads thru another saddle towards Maude. There is a strange sign there, reading, simply: 'trail'. Well, duh.

We walked for over an hour (3miles+-) and it steadily opened up, clouds diminishing. If we'd had more time, maybe 3-4 more hours, we could have summited. A nice loop would be to continue on & connect with the Leroy Creek trail & rejoin the Phelps Creek trail back to trailhead.

Or one could have turned right in the basin below Carne, and headed towards Old Gib and Estes Butte, etc. Many choices for wandering & loops in this lovely area. Patches of snow here and there in higher elevation, nothing to slow one's progress though.

Had to leave Mina behind this weekend, and it was a good thing we did. Carne would have been too much for her! The three guys summited Carne Mt. around 3pm. Since the upper bowl is still completely snowbound the only way up is straight up the rock rib to the left, hand-over-hand. Amazing views at the summit! There's still a TON of snow in the high country; looks more like March than June. On the way back down we had to spider-man down a nasty little chute (""ROCK!"") and plunge down a scree-field, then trudge across the frozen basin, in nearly white-out conditions - it went from clear to socked-in and snowing in 20 minutes! But hiking in snow always beats hiking in the rain. Blowdowns across the trail still haven't been cleared, and keep in mind there's water at the bottom and the top but none along the 4 miles to the basin. The road is rutted but not too badly. MUST come back in Autumn to see the tamarack clusters up-top in their fall colors!

The road to the Phelps Creek trailhead is open, but looks like it just got snow-free recently. There are some water gullys in the road right where your tires want to be. My sedan straddled them without too much difficulty, but you have to be careful where you choose to place the tires. Maybe soon the road will be graded?

The trail has several pesky blowdowns in the first 1500' vertical. Shortly before the basin below Carne Mtn, the snow is solid and we lost the trail.

While we were in the area, we tucked in ""Chilly"" peak, point 7920 1.4 miles NE. The 59er Diner closes at 8pm. We got there at 8:57 hoping to get in but had to drive home empty.

fall in the cascades, think golden larches. those at carne basin are a wondrous array. it's about 2 weeks past their peak, there are as many needles on the ground as are on the trees. yet in the morning sun they shine yellow, and in the afternoon shade they are yellow-orange. another cold night stretch and the needles will likely all fall [i don't know if they will survive the current bad cold weather front now here]. the smell of the needles is sweet and rich. i think these are alpine or mountain larches, since the tallest trees are under 50 ft. this grove is definitely happy--unlike the sadder droopy western larches for ex, at seattle's volunteer park. for those tired of the long usually multi-day trek to the upper enchantment lakes, carne mtn has fewer larches but the payoff is much more accessible. i don't understand why more hikers don't make it to this site. my wife double-checked the yellow bushes across the creek at the trailhead, and they are NOT larches--you still have to hike up to the basin to see them. btw, a pair of nature photography buffs told me that the fall colors are great in spider meadows, too.

the access road is a little difficult. the chiwawa river road is only occasionally marked--just stay on the main road. the last 15 miles to the phelps creek trailhead is dirt, gravel and rock. several parts need to be regraded.

the hike is basically in four parts: 1st thru the forest in the phelps valley, then up along a valley to the basin, 3rd is the basin itself, and lastly the walk along the ridge to the summit. once you reach the basin, just follow the foot-wide rivulet toward the middle of the three peaks. that's the site of the old lookout. snow starts in the trail at the basin, and covers much of the trail on the ridge. synthetic hiking boots were fine. there were no clouds today, and almost no winds on top, so i ate my lunch basking in the 60 degree sun--a contrast to the cold in the shade at the trailhead parking area upon arrival at 9:30 am.

we saw a red-tailed hawk flying over the access road, a blue grouse running up the mtn [this is the bird that eats the needles of larches], a mountain chickadee eating the dickens out of insects on the bark of trees, an unidentifiable small white-breasted blackbird-like bird, an unseen bird whose song was like a washboard, and a couple of woodpeckers i also heard but never saw.

it took an hour to get thru the forest, another hour to the basin, a half an hour to the ridge, and a leisurely half an hour to the summit. 3 hours up, 2 1/4 hours down, solo-friendly, no ice ax needed--tho if the mtn was covered with thick snow it would be recommended along the ridge.