Day 1: Phelps Cr TH - Lyman Lake via Spider Gap ~ 12 miles

3:30 wake up in Longview, 5 or so hour drive to the Phelps Cr TH, on the trail by 9:30 am. Road to Trinity is fairly good til the last 2 miles, road from Trinity to Phelps Cr is less good but still passable with a regular car. You can do the road walk either at the beginning or end of your hike. If at all possible, do it first. I did it last, and it is not fun!

Phelps Cr Trail is gorgeous, lightly traveled, excellent tread, tons of water available, no bugs, no snow. Beautiful big trees, peekaboo views through the forest of nearby peaks.

When you hit Spider Meadow you start getting views of surrounding peaks. About midway through the meadow there is a big pile of avalanche snow. I got turned around here, thinking I had already passed Phelps Creek and started looking for the trail to Spider Gap. Don't make my mistake, I wasted maybe an hour of time on the snow, in avalanche fall, bushwacking, etc, which took a physical and mental toll later. For whatever reason I thought there was no official trail from Spider Meadow up to Spider Gap, but that is not true. Just stay on the main trail, eventually you'll hit a signed trail junction at the bottom of the headwall, and you'll turn up slope toward the Gap.

The ascent from the meadow to the Spider Snowfield is steep and hot. Bring lots of water. The snowfield is soft and safe on a warm day like the one I did. Don't need any special equipment but poles might make it easier. It's apparently only a mile but it feels longer.

Spider Gap is spectacular, views for miles, and a good place for lunch. You'll have to swat a few deerflies, though, precursor of things to come.

Heading down now onto the Lyman Glacier is definitely steeper. With warm, soft snow a set of poles is all you'll need, but an axe or maybe crampons would make me feel safer. There's a thread at NWHikers.net with excellent info about how to find your way down the snow and onto a trail. Don't go right too soon are you end up cliffed at an overlook. But don't go right too late (like I did) or you miss the main trail and end up having to scramble down scree for hundreds of feet, which is tiring.

Once you find the trail, it's an easy up and down to Lyman Lake, which is beautiful. Camping sites are pretty mosquito-ey, but right at the lake there were hardly any flies or skeeters and it's got lots of warm, shallow areas perfect for a hot day. Gorgeous views!

There were some camping spots up higher on the ridge between upper and lower Lyman Lakes, which were scenic, breezy, and lonely, but you would have had to have gotten your water from upper Lyman lake or earlier, as there is no water right at those sites. Worth it though, for those who plan ahead.

Day 2: Lyman Lake - Cloudy Pass - Image Lake - Miner's Creek ~ 13 mi

On trail about 8 am. Easy jaunt up to Cloudy Pass with great views but again, lots of bugs. Definitely bring a headnet and spray. I was going to go with just a tarp since we had such great weather, but in the end I brought my 16 oz homemade bug tent too, which I was very grateful for - more for flies than mosquitoes.

The hiker shortcut to Suiattle Pass is snow-free, no trouble, but kind of steep and rocky.

Trail to Image Lake has a few blowdowns, nothing big. There are signs of active bears en route to Image Lake with several stripped trees and tons of scat near the miner's cabin ruins.

Image Lake itself was infested with horseflies. The campsites appear to be located over a ridge from the lake itself with great views of Glacier Peak but none of the Lake. I didn't camp here, instead moving on to Miner's Creek.

Hint: Miner's Creek bridge goes right over a 4 or 5 foot deep pool of water in the creek, exactly right for jumping in to neck depth for a great rinse off and cool off on a hot and dusty day. Water is cold but tolerable.

There aren't a lot of good campsites at Miner's Creek - I only saw one good one. I made do with a so-so spot and I didn't see any others sites.

Day 3: Miner's Creek - Middle Ridge/Sheep Driveway - Buck Creek Pass - High Pass Lookout ~ 12 mi

On the trail at 8 am. From Miner's Creek you're up to Middle Ridge through forest then parkland, again lots of flies and mosquitoes. There is an unmaintained but well-known trail there that you can go up about a mile and get big views of Glacier Peak et al. Worth it. Then down to Small Creek, a beautiful stream, then back up to Buck Creek Pass. This is around 6 mi, pretty easy, I was there before 11 am.

Note the official Buck Creek Pass campsites are down a hundred or two hundred feet in elevation next to a little stream. They have better access to toilets and water, but much inferior views, also cooler at night and less breezy, bad for bugs. Try to get the unofficial site visible from the main trail if you can, the one you pass as you first head down toward the official camping area.

After setting up camp at the unofficial campsite just off the main trail - the one still high enough to see sunset and sunrise on Glacier Peak - I set off for a dayhike to the unnamed pass just short of High Pass, described in Doug Lorain's "Backpacking Washington." It's an easy first couple miles, rounding Liberty Cap with ever-better views of Glacier Peak, etc. After a long 2 miles you hit an unnamed saddle and round the north-facing side of a ridge. Then you start to hit snowfields - about half a dozen in all. The first is too steep to safely pass. You have to scramble briefly down and around, which isn't too bad. The next few are safe to pass, with proper precautions. To be safest you should have an ax. I didn't. I had in-step crampons, but it was warm and the snow was soft. In retrospect I was probably taking a risk. The final snowfield which is literally immediately before the final destination is not passable. However you can scramble sort of back and up and reach the ridgeline, which you can then traverse briefly to the pass for the best views. Whoa!!! Icy Triad Lake, mostly frozen over, tons of snow and ice, glaciers, peaks, Glacier peak visible to the right, etc. This is an awesome and worthwhile short day hike if you can do it safely! Thunderheads were starting to build at 1:30 so I headed quickly back, just in time to cover my bug tent with my tarp as the first (and last) raindrops fell. Note there is no water once you start up Liberty Cap, bring what you need from Buck Creek Pass.

Day 4 - Buck Creek Pass - Trinity - Phelps Cr ~ 12 mi (plus 1 mi in a vehicle)

7:30 am start. Long, long, steady downhill with spectacular views of Buck Creek Valley and many snowy, icy peaks and slopes. The undulating portion of the valley can be wet with dew, swarming with flies, and hot and humid as there are a few avalanche slopes that are exposed. There are some ripe huckleberries here, but the flies keep you from hanging around too much. Saw some inbound hunters on the way down.

Once you get to the road, it's a long 3 miles, maybe 3.25 miles from Trinity parking lot to Phelps Creek TH. As mentioned, try to do the road walk on entry rather than exit. I found this a very painful and not fun part of the hike, would have been better at the beginning. However, you probably need 5 days to do it that way (staying the first night in Spider Meadow after a 10 mile hike in including the road walk), otherwise you end up starting off with a 15 mile plus day, and the last 3-4 miles are descending the Lyman Glacier in late afternoon while you're probably pretty bushed, which doesn't sound that safe to me.

Great hike, would be nicer in 5 days than 4 but rarely is the hiking steep and the trails are all well-graded and easy to travel (obviously excepting the Spider snowfield and Lyman Glacier).

Really spectacular scenery. Maybe flies and skeeters will be doing out shortly with cooler weather coming this week. Huckleberries just coming on. One of the most scenic backpacks I've done! I didn't mention all the flowers, just tons of lupine and many other common Cascade flowers on the parks of Buck Creek Pass, Lady Pass, Cloudy Pass, etc.

Thanks to posters at NWHikers.net for their tips on traversing the snowfields at Spider Gap!

My buddy Paul and I planned a few months ago to make the Spider Meadow to Holden through hike together. He was going to meet up with friends spending the week there and I was looking forward to returning to one of my favorite places in the North Cascades. Given the late summer we had been watching careful reports coming out of area to determine if the snow was going to melt off enough to make it possible for us to make the trip. Finally about a week ago the WTA reports and some reports Paul got directly from Holden village confirmed the route looked good (Our backup plan to hike the Lakeshore trail would go back on "the list").

We started out at the Spider Meadow Trail Head on Friday Morning around 11am. I know Spider Meadow is popular, but 10 parties had already signed in before us on that day! The bugs heading up were definitely trying to make up lost time with the short summer. We hit the meadow after a few hours and took a site at the south end. Wild flowers were going strong. Most of the snow was melted out save for a big avalanche flow at the north end of the meadow. Given its depth I'm guessing it probably will not melt out this summer. Some parties arriving late on Friday definitely were scouting around for a while to find a site...

Saturday morning we started out for our big adventure, going from the meadow, over the gap to Lyman and down to Hart. After crossing the avalanche flow, we found the trail and started the ascent to the gap. There were a few trees down and patches of snow on the trail beyond the avalanche flow but nothing too challenging to get over. The views on the way to the gap were as always more spectacular the higher we climbed. The trail to the edge of Spider Glacier/err snowfield was clear and good hiking. It was here when most of the day hikers caught us. There must have been at least 12+ people in 3-4 parties heading up.

At the Glacier edge most folks choose to take the more direct route up directly up the snow. We choose to take the footpaths on the east shoulder and were rewarded with some spectacular views of Phelps Basin and Spider Meadow though we did have to cross multiple patches of snow on the ascent. To this point we had only used hiking poles for additional traction/support. The weather was warm and the snow soft so on the ascent I felt pretty comfortable/had enough traction without additional support. At the Gap we decided it was time for additional traction. I saw other folks with everything from full crampons to mini spikes. I brought my yaktrax. On the ascent to the upper Lyman pools I had both yaktrak pop off and didn't even notice as the snow was soft my feet sunk in an inch or two. We found one of them, but sadly someone else is going to end up hauling out the other one (apologies). Some yahoos were using thick plastic as makeshift toboggan and flying down the hill toward Lyman Glacier. I saw some other folks on the Glacier itself without ropes. Not sure if there is much in way of deep crevasses left in the glacier, but those were risks I wasn't interested in taking. For us on a warm day additional traction on the snowfield wasn't needed, but on a colder day where the snow freezes up, traction support would be a must as the trip down to Lyman is moderately steep in places. Also the rock fall danger over the entire snowfield descending down from the Gap to Lyman should not be under estimated. There were plenty of smaller rocks(baseball size and smaller) half buried/sticking out of the snow. I saw at least one large rock fall across the way on the western side of the basin as we descended. I didn't see anyone wearing helmets in these areas. We moved relatively quickly down and out of the danger zone, but I wouldn't recommend staying in the snowfields for long stretches to other folks. Ok enough with the risk talk. The views down into Lyman are spectacular with the mountains, ponds and icebergs. Unfortunately there was a boat the next day to catch down in Lucerne or otherwise we would have stayed the night in the Lyman area. As it was we moved on and down to Hart Lake. The trail down that way is pretty overgrown with annuals, especially the switch back section leading down from Lyman to Hart, but otherwise well maintained. We met a wedding party heading up to Lyman from Holden on Sunday morning. One way that was 9 miles so quite a day hike. After cleaning up at Holden, the bus took me down to Lucerne and out. A lovely long weekend getaway.

Oh, blueberries, we saw plenty of them, but still several weeks away from being edible. Those hiking in Early September will probably be able to come back with proper purple hands...

After the boat ride up Lake Chelan to Lucerne and the bus ride up to Holden Village, we hiked up the Railroad Creek trail a few miles to Hart Lake. The trail was in fine shape, and the fishing was pretty good at the inlet near the established camp on the NW side of the Lake. The bugs weren't too bad here, but beware the pesky deer!

On day two we hiked from Hart Lake to Lyman Lake. The trail gets a bit brushy up the Crown Point switchbacks, then patchy snow starts about 1/2 mile before reaching Lyman Lake. The camps at the north end of the lake are partially melted out. The large campsite on the NW corner of the lake, just before the trail starts climbing to Cloudy Pass, is totally melted out. We cross-country camped near the inlet at the south end of the lake. The lake is still too cold for decent fishing, and the only apparent surface feeding activity was in the north part of the lake. The mosquitoes are thick throughout the Lyman Lakes basin, all the way up to Cloudy Pass.

On day three we took a side trip to Upper Lyman Lake and Spider Gap. This area was almost completely snow-covered, but there are some nice patches of ground melted out for camping up there and the lakes/creek are mostly melted. The ascent to Spider Gap was fine without an ice axe once the sun softened the snow.

On day four we headed over Cloudy Pass, then up over Suiattle Pass. We were able to stay roughly on the trail despite plenty of snow. A bit of routefinding was necessary on both passes, especially on protected north-facing slopes above 5500 feet. The mosquitoes let up almost immediately after crossing Cloudy Pass. We dropped down from Suiattle Pass to the Miners Ridge turnoff, and mostly left behind any significant snow at the Miners Creek camp (melted out). We were glad to find the Miners Ridge trail almost completely snow free - what a spectacular stretch of meadows in the mile before dropping into Image Lake! This area really lives up to it reputation! Quite a bit of snow (not steep) is encountered entering the Image Lake basin, but the backpackers camps are totally melted out. The lake was still ringed with snow, and the fishing was no good (still too cold?).

On day five we returned to Suiattle Pass and headed down the South Fork Agnes Creek trail (not the PCT, which stays above the valley floor for several miles). The trail was in pretty good shape, but there are some areas of brush, water, and blowdown when crossing the avalanche chutes upstream of Hemlock Camp. These weren't bad enough to cause any route-finding issues. The fishing was a bit slow on Agnes Creek at Hemlock Camp, as the creek is still pretty high and cold.

On day six we continued down Agnes Creek. The trail was in fine shape and the huckleberries were ripe as we approached 5-mile camp. Plenty of bear activity in the area around and downstream of 5-mile camp. We didn't have any trouble with bears in our camp on Pass Creek, but we encountered a bear near the camp at the West Fork Agnes Creek trail intersection, and another bear just after crossing Pass Creek. We continued to see plenty of tracks and scat all the way to the Agnes Gorge bridge.

I'd been looking forward to hiking this stretch for over a year; had to bail on the trip last year when my hiking partner became ill on the drive over.

The first day was a warm one, and the bugs started about a quarter or half mile into the woods. They weren't particularly terrible, but I really hate bugs. (The bites I received aren't bad, though, just bumps three days later, and I'm not itchy.)

The meadow was beautiful, and looking ahead at the wall in front of us we couldn't see how the trail could possibly climb up. We were pretty warm and tired by the time we reached the point where the trail split to Spider Gap and Phelps Basin. So after a short rest, we struck out on the trail uphill. It's only a half mile more to the camps at the base of Spider Glacier, but 900 feet of gain. Just take it slowly and know that you're almost there.

There were several parties already at camp, but there were a lot more camp sites at the base of the glacier/snowfield than we had expected. There are at least 10 tent sites, maybe more hidden around. Plenty of water running in the creek flowing out of the base of the glacier. It's a mean little climb to the toilet, though, be warned.

We didn't have any meaningful bug problem at camp. Aggressive ground squirrels, though. So be prepared to hang your food, but it can be tough to find a good tree for the purpose at this elevation.

The next day we ascended the glacier up and over Spider Gap, down the snowfield on the other side, found the trail through the rocks, and made our way to Lyman Lake. Returned the same way. Conditions for snow travel were very good. The top several inches were soft enough that many people were successfully making the trip in sneakers, not that I would recommend it. We'd brought crampons with for the heck of it, and were really glad to have them because we had fantastic traction. There are parts (on both sides) that are pretty steep. (Hey, I know, lots of you would do it all in trail runners, but aluminum crampons are nice and light.) We had ice axes, too, but never pulled them out, relying instead on poles for balance. But even in late August the nights are starting to get cold this season. If it starts dipping below freezing overnight above 6000 feet, these snowfields are going to get hard and icy.

Wayfinding tip: When traveling down the snowfield on the north side of Spider Gap, head down the tongue that extends roughly north. You'll find the first trail cairn on a mound right in front of you.