French Creek, Meadow Creek, Snowall Cradle Lake, Paddy-Go-Easy Pass, Klonaqua Lakes

After reading glowing reports about Cradle Lake, I set out with my friend David, for a 4 day backpack going over Paddy Go Easy Pass, to Klonaqua Lakes and then up Snowall Creek to Cradle Lake. I expected some brushy conditions on the Snowall Creek trail, but after numerous backpacks along Icicle Creek and its tributaries, I was surprised to find French Creek trail, #1595 and Meadow Creek trail, #1559, to be very brushy and, at times, quite difficult to follow.

We began our trip by ascending Paddy Go Easy Pass. The road going in was filled with potholes and we averaged less than 20 miles per hour. For the first several miles the valley was enveloped in thick smoke from a fire on the other side of the valley and we we're contemplating turning around and going elsewhere. But a couple of miles from the trailhead, the smoke cleared and was never an issue for the 4 days we we're out. We we're on the trail by 10 AM and arrived at the pass in a little over 2 hours. The trail has a constant moderate gradient and was in good condition with great views all the way to the top. The trail descending the other side of the pass gave us our first taste of what we would be encountering for most of the remainder of the trip. It was a little brushy, but easy to follow. When we got the bottom of the valley and the junction with the Meadow Creek trail, the French Creek trail became extremely brushy and obscure. In the first mile it crossed the creek 4 or 5 times. We would come to the creek and the trail would disappear in the washed out creek bed. It often took several minutes of tramping around in the bushes to find the faint trail on the other side. There we're no cairns or ribbons. It seemed like this trail was rarely used or maintained.

The trail up to Klonaqua Lakes was like an obstacle course that the military might use for basic training. The first half of the trail alternated between blowdowns, brush and deeply eroded ravines with a tangle of branches. At around 4400', the trail turned to the left and began to climb quite steeply. Fortunately, from this point, it was relatively clear. We arrived at the first lake around 6:30 PM, exhausted. There was a ranger camped at the lake who told us what to expect on the trails going into and out of Cradle Lake.

The next day we got an early start and descended from the lake to the French Creek trail, which we followed downstream for a mile to the junction with the Snowall Creek trail, #1560. Based on the description in the "100 Hikes" book and the information given to us by the ranger, we expected this to be a difficult trail, and we weren't disappointed. Wading across French Creek was easy, but after that the fun started. This trail obviously gets little use and required our constant attention to make out the faint tread barely visible through the brush. At around 5000', the trail completely disappeared in a boggy meadow. We made our way through the chest high foliage until we came to the end of the meadow. Ahead of us was a cirque with Snowall Creek cascading downwards and to the left was a meadow filled valley. It was a beautiful place, but we didn't really appreciate it, as it seemed that we had reached a dead end. There was a thicket of impenetrable alder in front of us. After stumbling about aimlessly for several minutes, we finally broke out the compass and realized that the trail went up the valley to our left. Without any evidence of a trail, we started to make our way up the hillside and entered the woods. We followed what seemed to be faint game trails, and after a few minutes, miraculously somehow wound up on the trail again. The trail climbed through the meadows and almost completely disappeared several times, especially for the last several hundred feet of elevation gain. Within a couple of years, this upper section of the trail will be gone. Aim for the lowest spot on the ridge and ignore a trail that seems to be going up along the ridge to your right. Once we attained the top of the ridge, the trail became quite well defined as we descended to Cradle Lake. The 8.5 miles and 2700' feet of elevation took us all day.

Our next day was our layover day at the lake. I was thinking of day hiking Blackjack Ridge, but we decided against it and we're both grateful to have a day off to relax at the lake and do some local exploration. Cradle Lake is one of the most beautiful alpine lakes I have ever visited. It is surrounded by lovely meadows and there are great views across Jack Creek to Eightmile and Cashmere Mountain. We spent over an hour looking for established campsites and found only one near the shore of the lake that was closed for revegetation. I suppose it's possible that there are established campsites, but we never found any and finally camped in a grassy area on the ridge overlooking Jack Creek.

Our last day started with an uneventful descent from the lake to the Meadow Creek trail. Then the trail disappeared in a large meadow. After stumbling around and getting wet in the woods at the far end of the meadow, we finally found the trail by going uphill away from the creek. This trail was no better than the Snowall Creek trail. A couple of times we wound up crawling on our hands and knees in alders and had to back track to look for the trail in a different direction. We finally made our way over the rocky divide between the headwaters of Meadow and French Creek and closed our loop when we got the junction with the French Creek trail at the bottom of Paddy Go Easy Pass. This was a challenging but very rewarding trip. I hope some basic maintenance wil be done on these trails before they completely disappear.