5 days’ freedom and perfect weather amid world-class scenery and peaking wildflowers. No need to carry water; abundant everywhere. High Pass is still all snow; ice ax required, crampons too if it freezes hard; Spider Gap likewise. Much more snow than usual, rendering the landscape more beautiful and varied, and the travel easier if you are skilled at alpine snow travel. Bugs more abundant than normal. I did not treat any water. I’ll post a followup if I get sick.
Future readers: 2011 is a record-snowpack year; water, snow, flower, and insect conditions described here are more like late July-early August, and bear no resemblance to ordinary Septembers (dry, no bugs, no flowers, carry water).
My guess: weekend of Sept 10, 2011 should still be amazing for flowers.

DANGER, PLEASE NOTE: I brought crampons, not strictly necessary WHEN THE SNOW WAS SOFT, but taking them was a good call: if it freezes hard –- it soon will -- they will be necessary, and ice ax too of course. On the trail south of Buck Pass east of Pt. 7276, and on High Pass itself, I saw several people equipped with nothing more than poles and light hiking shoes crossing steep snow that I considered lethally dangerous. Yes, it was soft and easy; yes, there were steps; yes, many other people had crossed safely, but these people were oblivious to the fact that they were on deadly terrain. I watched a young couple with light shoes, single poles, and a dog, crossing several steep snow tongues on the east (Buck Creek) side of the High Pass trail that I wouldn't dream of crossing without an ice ax, alert. The runouts were 100+' onto steep scree and boulders. I broke my ankle in more forgiving ground. PLEASE! Whenever you venture out onto snow, LOOK DOWN. Where are you gonna land if you slip? How fast are you gonna be going? You think you're gonna arrest yourself with a hiking pole? Forget it! My ice ax and training didn't do me any good. I only went 20'. 20' more, and I'd be dead. It happens JUSTLIKETHAT. Whenever you venture onto snow, especially hard snow, think: Mouse. Cheese. Trap! Don't make us read about you in the paper.

Expect hunters:
The Chiwawa region is a favorite of hunters ancient and modern. Bear season starts Aug. 1 (remember the Sauk Mt. tragedy). High Buck Hunt in this area is Sept 15-25 this year, if I have it right. Be aware of this. Get yourself some safety-orange gear. Good time for a hike in a national park.
http://wdfw.wa.gov/hunting/regulations/hunter_orange/
http://wdfw.wa.gov/publications/01184/wdfw01184.pdf

Little Giant Pass:
Ford is unusually deep for Sept: almost knee-deep. Bring old shoes to throw back across (weight with rocks). A wooden stick is nice. Between Chiwawa R and Little Giant Pass, a thorough trail crew has done everything but bridge the river. Nice job, thanks. Even in much drier conditions, there is water at the bottom of the high meadows.

Little Giant Pass to Napeequa:
brushy, steep, but serviceable, easy to follow; it's been the PCT detour.

Napeequa valley:
Lovely, but I'd never want to camp here in bug season. I’ve always seen bears and/or bear hunters in this general area. Unmaintained, but not enough trees for blowdown problems.
The usual route to High Pass crosses N. Fork Napeequa and ascends to the lovely hanging valley in a steep but short, moderate bushwhack. Nice camp at the outfall.

Louis Creek High Route to High Pass:
We took the Louis Creek High Route to High Pass. The ascent to the hanging valley of upper Louis Creek is very steep meadow, ice ax all the way (yes, on steep dry meadow). Amazingly, the 25 lb. dog could do it (minor help). I would not ask a dog to go down this way; descending is much harder on their backs. Start a few hundred meters left of Louis Creek. It's almost all alder-free. Night 1 at the Berge-Buck col amid larches on a pumice dome. The whole unusual landscape is blanketed in Glacier Peak pumice.

Al claims first ascent of Buck Mt. by a tricolored Pembroke Welsh corgi on a September Saturday without supplemental oxygen. It's an easy scramble. Try to do it in conditions like this, with lots of snow – if you can still ford the Chiwawa. Or try it on 6" legs.

High route from Buck Mt. across Berge col to High Pass is fairly straightforward (in good viz; see photo) and the snow cover makes it easier (ice ax required, as always). From the col south of Berge (the summit SW of marked Pt. 7948), drop SW, then W to 6800’, then traverse N as high as possible just under the rock buttress guarding the High Pass outfall. This year only, there’s so much snow that with ice ax/crampons, it looked like one could climb this steep 6840’-to-7040’ section above the High Pass outfall on snow, a straight NW–SE line from Berge col to High Pass outfall. I did not do this.

High Pass:
Night 2, solo bivvy site on sand and rock right at the top, grand view in calm weather, Napeequa and Glacier Pk right in your lap. Also a very exposed windy tent site in the notch to the south, sand, fairly low-impact. Don’t mess this place up. No trace.
I weenied on Napeequa Peak – looked too much for the dog – that’s not all I blame on my scapedog.
High Pass is all snow this year. Triad Lake is not even fully melted out yet. I used crampons here, maybe not strictly necessary if you’re good on snow – it was getting soft – but had it been hard, crampons would have been necessary.
I saw people crossing with hiking poles, almost certainly unaware of the danger. There’s a steep spot there. I crossed it last year with mountaineering boots and a bamboo pole, and it was scary, steep runout onto rocks. Although it can sometimes be almost snow-free by September, this place is an accident waiting to happen.

Mt. Cleator 7625’:
A 10-15’ walkup from the south end of High Pass. Not to be missed.

Pt. 7276:
Also a fine view. Take it easy with your feet, don’t trash it.

High Pass to Buck Pass:
Allow lots of time for this even when meadow flowers are not peaking; world-class views east and west slow you down more than blackberry thickets. This area was one of A.H. Sylvester’s favorite places, for a reason. If you go to Buck Pass, DO NOT SKIP THIS. Go south as far as you can, but don’t cross the steep snow E of Pt. 7276 unless you know you know what you’re doing.

Middle Ridge Sheep Camp:
This place gets dry in September, so I loaded 5 L of water at Small Creek, and humped it up past stream after stream after stream until I dumped it in disgust at the sheep meadow amid rushing brooks and waterfalls. There’s a 5-star campsite at the 6400’ saddle, but the higher you go, the better it gets. Follow the fence of trees to 6480’, 6700’, 6800’. The views get better, the campsites smaller.
From the sheep camp meadow, we went gingerly straight NE up lush steep meadows to the lip of the moraine at 7400’, 2-star campsite with 5-star view and nice rock furniture (just S of an obvious huge sloping flat rock). We spurned this for a 0-star climber’s bivvy on top of the 7530’ knob (oval contour on the 7.5’ topo) with a 6-star view (5-star scale) of Berge to Shuksan, Glacier Peak right in our face. No water; melted snow <kindly restrain your laughter>. Warm, dead calm, no tent, utterly clear, early moonset, dark enough to see Andromeda Galaxy with naked eye, one of the best nights ever, higher than Helmet Butte. Hunters at the 6350’ sheep meadow had a fire on a night when I scarcely zipped up the sleeping bag at 7500’. Go figure. They were shooting in the morning.
Check this out if you like high country. Just a steep walk. Lip of the moraine in a magnificent cirquelet between two nearly 8300’ towers. This is Pt. 8297, the unnamed(?) NW spur of Fortress – the stupendous thing you see from Miners’ Ridge Trail or the PCT. West of the divide, it would be a major peak. You’ll not forget this place. It faces SW, looking right up the upper Suiattle valley to Tenpeak and the Kololos. See photo.
I didn’t look closely, but there might be a way around the knife-edge cleaver to the SE at maybe 7200, possibly ascend NE to the 8200’ ridge from there. That’s for climbers.
"East of the Divide", Chester Marler; he talks about the sheep herding and lots of other neat stuff. "Tales of a Western Mountaineer", C.E. Rusk.

Miners’ Ridge Trail:
Just above the cabin ruin, find the miners’ trail that climbs rightward. This will take you to the main adit, still open, very dangerous loose mine-dump terrain. Bright blue-green-turqouise copper minerals lying about. There are also 3 filled shafts or adits due N of the cabin ruin. See the 7.5’ USGS Suiattle Pass topo. All portable artifacts already stolen, but please take no souvenirs.

Cloudy Pass:
Night 4 at the pass, 6440'. Bugs (!) at dusk, dawn, but vanished with cool breeze at night (I had no bug net; this was our lowest camp). There is water just below the pass on either side. No significant snow, trail well-maintained, some beautiful rock work. One year, I humped water up here from Lyman Lake, only to find water flowing in the dry-looking meadow SW of Cloudy Peak (campsite there).
A better choice: climb high on the SW shoulder of Cloudy Pk, as high as you can go. There is a small bivvy site up there with jawdropping views of Glacier Peak, Dome, North Cascades, Bonanza, Chiwawas. Cloudy Pk is a walkup scramble except for a Class 3-4 dog-unfriendly chimney at the top. Remember, dogs are stupid about rockfall.

Lyman Lake:
I took a photo of the trail sign at the junction, didn’t read it, and took the wrong turn. Trail to upper Lyman looks like a social trail, compared to what you’re used to at this point.
Then I did it again.

Spider Gap:
NW side, snow from about 6500’ to top. Soft snow, might be difficult if hard, but runout seemed OK and not too steep. I used crampons for traction on the ascent, not really necessary. S side, all snow to the knob camp at the Spider Glacier terminus. NOTE: the place to hang out is not Spider Gap, but the level 6960’ ridge SE of it, less than 200’ lower than the gap, like a North Cascades version of Canyonlands overlooking the huge Phelps Ck cirque.
Somebody took a sh!t on the rocks right at the best viewpoint at Spider Gap, so I got to clean it up. C'mon, you're not gonna start a forest fire if you burn your buttwipe at 7200'. If you can't burn it (SAFELY) or pack it out, stay home, I'm tired of you. At that barren elevation, it can be best to do a "desert smear" on a south-facing rock and let the sun bake it -- but don't do this at one of the most popular spots in the sate, OK?

Phelps Creek:
At the first stream below Leroy Ck, note the concrete mining ruin, maybe the foundation for a Pelton wheel powerplant? I believe there are two adits on the other side of the river. I think the Glacier Peak Mines (on Plummer Mt) and the Red Mt Mine (Trinity) are discussed in "Discovering Washington’s Historic Mines", Oso Publishing, vol. 2 – the one I don’t have yet. Recommended.

Phelps Creek TH back to Little Giant:
A 4-6 mi. road walk, stretch those tired legs, kinda nice with a moon and a dog. One might stash a bike at Phelps Creek TH.

Beats a leash walk around the neighborhood.