Left a rainy Everett at 8 am. Drizzle at trailhead. Started hiking around 11 am. Made it to Lake Ann in about 2 hours. 2 steep snow patches to navigate. One slip and you are in for one hell of a glissade with numerous rocks/boulders to hit on the way down. Stopped 500 feet short of Maple Pass and called it a day. While eating lunch it started to SNOW!!! It was a nice bonus to see a snow shower in late june. Back to the car in little over 4 hours. Nice hike. Continued onto Winthrop for food and shopping. Good time enjoyed by all.

I was off for a long two days of getting photographs for a couple of projects, and I built up my plans around it being fall and hunting for larch trees while I was at it. First stop: Rainy Pass on the North Cascades Highway for a quick dose of Maple Pass loopness. I was surprised at how little traffic I had to deal with driving over one of the best fall mountain drives in our state. About 3:30 hrs from home I hit the trail at 11:00am as quickly as I could comfortably go...I still wanted to hike in the Harts Pass area later in the day!

The 1 1/2 miles to the Lake Ann junction went quickly and I continued on up toward Heather Pass. The scenery instantly opens up and excellent views at Lake Ann and the surrounding peaks and Maple Pass. Up some fairly steep switchbacks and suddenly I was at Heather Pass, ablaze in crimson fall color from the huckleberry plants. Now I had views to the western mountains as well, and the clouds blew in a cold wind and occasional drizzle. But it never became socked in to block my views. Onward to Maple Pass...and larch trees began to pop up more and more. This area was averaging only about 50% there on the larch color, but the smaller trees were perfect! This made for incredible foreground subjects when looking across the huge basin of Lake Ann and all of the mountains in every direction. The roaming on the ridge of Maple Pass was like magic in how the clouds would swoosh around and the mountains in all directions always looking different in different light. Once over the 6900' highpoint it was a VERY steep last two miles out to complete the trip to the trailhead. It was painful to even think about hiking the loop in the opposite direction and UP this portion. In the upper meadows just below the pass a group of three blue grouse were just above the trail posing for me. They were huge! Farther down in the forest I had a new life bird for myself when I enjoyed three pine grosbeaks for over 10 minutes! They were beautiful! It was a great hike and I don't know why but I only saw about six people on the entire trek.

At 2:30pm I was back in the rig and eating my lunch while heading farther east...farther into my adventure weekend...next stop Harts/Slate Pass!

Black Peak 8,970’ August 19, 2001

The trailhead is off Highway 20 at Rainy Pass at 4,840’. The Park Service was cutting some trees at the picnic area, so we had to park across the Highway at the Pacific Crest Trailhead. My first mistake was to look at the map and think that the trail to Lake Ann branched off of the PCT. Doerte and I backtracked, and found the Lake Ann, Heather Pass, and Maple Pass Trailhead nearby.

After a mile a branch of the trail heads for Lake Ann at 5,475’. A gorgeous lake, and a favorite of dayhikers. We took the right fork to Heather Pass, 6,040’. There is no camping within a quarter mile of Heather Pass or Lake Ann. On beautiful Heather Pass we had a fantastic view of Black Peak in the distance, wrapped in the early morning clouds.

We crossed several rockslides of various sizes, losing 300’ on our way to Lewis Lake. Staying near the bottom of the slides allowed us to take advantage of some bits of trail. Cairns mark a higher route. It is .75 mile from Heather Pass to Lewis Lake at 5,702’. There are a couple of nice camps there, still in the trees.

A good climber’s trail took us up the moraine to Wing Lake, 6,905’. Doerte ate some nice, ripe, and plump Huckleberries along the way. There were lots of friendly Marmots and Picas to entertain us along the trail. Wing Lake is just at the top of treeline, and has many nice camps. Most summit parties camp here and make the ascent the second day, hiking out the second or third day.

Becky’s perennial snowfield was mostly a combination of scree and talus on this August day after a dry winter. Slowly we worked our way to Black Peaks’ south ridge at 7,900’. The last 300’ was a struggle of loose scree.

We ascended the South Ridge, staying on the ridge for as long as we could, moving in the scree filled gully when forced. Near the summit we traversed to the right and went up to the false summit. Traversing right some more brought us to a route to the summit ridge, and then over a short exposed notch to the narrow summit at 8,970’. There is no register. The smoke from the Lake Chelan fires obscured the views to the east and south. We had nice views to Boston Basin and Jack Mountain.

Far below we could see two climbers coming up the Northeast Ridge. This route is class 3 and 4 and has one class 5 pitch. Lage Wernstedt and Whitey Shull first climbed Black Peak in late summer 1926. Hermann Ulrichs climbed Black Peak solo in 1934 via the South Route.

The smoke got worse as we descended, burning our eyes and filling our noses. We picked up our packs on the ridge and descended the talus and scree back to Wing Lake. The climbers trail was a welcome sight. However, the 300’ gain back to Heather Pass of the talus slopes was torture! One large boulder came down from above as we were crossing the slope giving us a scare. We knew it was coming, but couldn’t see it.

We were back at the trailhead at 7 p.m. for an 11.5-hour day. 4,730’ gain. A nice tough scramble to a big peak just 30’ short of being a 9,000er!

Hiked Lake Ann trail to Heather Pass. Trail in very good shape. Climber's trail from Heather Pass to Wing Lake is snow free and passable. It is a rough go between Heather Pass and Lewis Lake across a talus slope. Camped at Wing Lake and climbed Black Peak. Lots of folks in the back-country. Wing Lake still partial ice covered and open areas refreezing at night.