Kennedy Ridge, Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) Section K - Stevens Pass to Rainy Pass, High Pass, Napeequa River, Boulder Pass, White River, North Fork Sauk River, Round Lake, Buck Creek Pass & Glacier Peak Circumnavigation — Saturday, Sep. 4, 2010

Glacier Peak Loop. 8 Two-Dog nights with only one dog. Mostly lazy days, late starts and early camps. DAY 1 9/4 Lost Creek Ridge. Locked in to vacation schedule. 80 deg F. in Seattle the previous day. Weather moving in, cool, overcast, good for climbing with a load. Stash pack at TH, park @ N Fk Sauk #649, car empty, unlocked, bike back. Trail in good shape. Maintenance stops at Round Lake, this shows immediately, progress slows. Spoke 7 bear hunters; glad to have my day-glo hat and safety vest (weighs nothing) since my rain gear is all black (I found it, wouldn't have bought black clothing). The hot-pink/baby-blue anorak seemed suddenly less ugly. Orange pack. Camped on barren sand flats on divide between Camp & Byrne Lakes, 200m visibility. DAY 2 9/5 Lost Creek Ridge to Kennedy Hot Springs, Kennedy Ridge Tr #639 to Pumice Ck on PCT. Start delayed by rain and sticking snow. Portentous. Intermittent showers all day. Wet brush, soaked. Trail rough below Lake Byrne for a few hundred feet; smooth after it drops into forest. Some blowdown but not a major obstacle. White Chuck crossing is straightforward (see my 9/26/09 report) although we used the barked double logs this time. Cairned. Easy big level logs but high, very serious current, no place to fall. Several choices. Naughty dog broke his stay and crossed unaided while I was getting out the belay gear. Slightly easier logs over Kennedy Ck. Good campsite at the confluence, east side, small clean stream. Kennedy Ridge Tr is unsigned but hard to miss; I thought it was a social trail at first. Interesting trail: it follows the crest of a sharp ridge between Glacier and Kennedy creeks. Insignificant obstacles. PCT to Fire Ck Pass is brushy, wet. Privvy and presumably campsites at Glacier Ck. We camped at Pumice Ck. Day 3 9/6 PCT over Fire Ck Pass, Milk Ck, to E Fk Milk Ck basin. Snow less than 100' above us in the morning. Decided to bag it and retreat to Red Pass if rain continued, but a dry sucker-pocket morning lured us over Fire Creek Pass. Once committed, the rain began in earnest. No views at all, wind and rain. Darrington has done magnificent, immense trail work between Fire Ck Pass and Milk Ck: blasting, rock work, logouts, retread, brushing, the works. Would've been discouraged without this. Heartbreaking elevation loss to Milk Creek. The new PCT bridge across upper Milk Creek is impressive: steel I-beams, 2 spans. Milk Ck Tr #790 is still unmaintained below the PCT; sign says "no bridge over Suiattle R". On the E side Stairmaster climb, the brushing stops at about switchback 24 (there are 44), enabling one to appreciate what they did for you. This is a long, tiring, serious climb with a load. Campsite at the ridge crest, but no water. Camped with some tree shelter in the E Fork Milk Creek basin, soaked. First water past Milk Creek. 2-Dog-Night With Only 1 Dog Technique: I brought a down bag. What was I THINKING?! I wasn't thinking. By Night 3, I had a wet bivvy sack full of wet feathers. But a Welsh corgi counts as 2 dogs 'cause it fits into your sleeping bag. Wear every stitch of clothing but your rain gear. Stuff the dog's foam square up inside the back of your anorak so your back has some insulation when you roll to either side. Lie on your back, dog on your chest, put the dog's blanket over the dog inside the wet bag. Bury your cold hands in the dog's pelt. Carefully rig the mummy hole so both of your snouts exhale outside the bag. Don't get the animal's whiskers in the zipper. Then undo the whole thing to get out and pee (dog, too). Reassemble, relax, and succumb to the hypnotic mantra of a sleeping animal snoozing in your ear, as humans have done since there were dogs. It was not exactly a survival situation, but too cold and wet to sleep without the dog. We did this for the rest of the trip. Like an electric blanket. In mild weather, maybe I never need to bring a sleeping bag again... Do not try this at home, kids, unless your dog is totally cool! Imagine being trapped in a mummy bag with a panicked carnivore! [I'm serious.] DAY 4 9/7 PCT to Suiattle R. Lazy day, late start, early stop. Trail is clear except for last 1-2 miles before the river, so you learn what the trail crew did for you. Weather continued false promises of clearing, wet but not oppressive. Camped at Suiattle crossing. Kind of like the Pacific beaches: sand, deadwood, roaring water, wide open, foggy. Fine spring on W side. Spoke perhaps 9 PCTers. DAY 5 9/8 Suiattle R to High Pass. Same pattern: dry morning, false promises of clearing. The log is high but 2.5' wide and level [photo]; I shinnied but saw folks walking blithely across. I belayed the dog, maybe more dangerous than just letting him walk across alone, but a slip likely fatal. Strong current. Video of this crossing on YouTube. Suddenly, some trip-threatening Achilles tendonitis from the high new boots, high above heel, at boot rim. 2X Ibuprofen and 1X Tylenol helped. 9 days later, still sore, edema. PCT to Buck Ck Tr (west side) and Buck Ck Tr itself are in excellent shape, as is High Pass trail. 2 people at Buck Ck Pass. Around High Pass, world-class scenery in zero visibility, wind, and pending dark. At High Pass, much more snow than expected. The exposure was seriously dangerous, slip likely fatal under the circumstances, even if just a sprained ankle; I like an ice ax for this stuff but had a 6.5' bamboo stick. Snow was just soft enough. Mountaineering boots, experienced. Repeat: dangerous exposure at High Pass this season. Descended a few hundred feet into basins S of pass and found a great established bivvy site. The rain politely waited until I had the tent mostly up. DAY 6 9/9 High Pass -- Napeequa -- Boulder Pass. Weather finally breaking. Overcast, but rain stopped mostly. Serious immersion feet. Trench Foot numbness over 2 weeks later. My awful new modern full-rand boots don't drain; the cheap fabric liners and sponge rubber padding hold a ton of water. I couldn't pour standing water out of these boots if the instructions were written on the soles. The liners soak it up. I'd have been better off with my old ones, which have holes in them. Scuppers. The hanging valley of the N Fk is a delight. Track is intermittent, but you only really need it up above, where it's on the N & W banks, readily apparent. Still snow patches, a cool summer. The climb down from the hanging valley is steep and brushy but not difficult, a low-grade bushwhack. The track is obvious, W side of river. Fine campsite up above at mouth of hanging valley. Napeequa is a beautiful open walk. Sketchy in a few places. It goes to water's edge, where we rockhopped some curious whitish granite ledges and almost kept our feet dry; so upbound, try keeping to the N bank and you'll soon rejoin the track; these white ledges are pretty obvious, and the first pool is the worst. Campsite at Louis Ck. The Boulder Pass ford is simple, briefly knee deep and mostly shallower this season. Boulder Pass Tr #1562 is lovely, wild, steep, with sometimes frail-looking tread, airy. A few Do-Not-Fall places. Brushy but well-logged (it's been the PCT detour). The SW side of the pass (possible bivvy, water) was windy, so we retreated to 6100' on the NE side and bivvied on a sand patch. Cleaned up after some maximum-impact campers, but couldn't hide the 2' stump, which you can see from the pass. Hey, if you need to take an ax and saw to 6100', make a messy fire, leave permanent ax/saw scars on standing deadwood, and spray paint trail markers on beautiful gneiss boulders (not making this up)... maybe just stay home where you belong and watch the game instead...? Gotta go back with graffiti remover. This is bigotted, but I have a pretty good idea what kind of people do this stuff... DAY 7 9/10 Boulder Pass to White R. to Lightning Ck. Our first dawn, subdued but stunning due to sun deprivation. Entiats in sunshine. Boulder Pass #1562 is excellent all the way, my favorite of the trip (I'd never been there). Clark Mt. High Route sheep trail is easily spotted if you know where to look. Sign at White R jctn: "8/17/10... fires in Thunder Basin, Lightning Basin... Travel up White R #1507 STRONGLY DISCOURAGED". "Just the USFS keeping the liability lawyers happy", says Mr. Smartass here. Past Lightning Ck next day, I wasn't scoffing at that sign anymore. A unique blaze marks the route to Thunder Basin. Going quite brushy but generally doable with many fast stretches to Lightning Ck. Nice camp, quit early, made fire to dry-out, sort of. Later, REALLY glad we stopped here. Lots of big bear scat; hung food carefully. Stars! DAY 8 9/11 Lightning Ck to White Pass. Lazy start 11 AM Lightning Ck, expected to reach PCT by 2 PM, didn't get there until 4:30 PM. Luckily, the best weather day. It was a challenge. Trail deteriorates steadily past Lightning Ck. Waist-, shoulder-, head-high brush. Dog, trail invisible at my feet. Serious blowdown from the big burns and avy debris. 3 N-side tributaries past Lightning Ck; it's worst between these, perhaps 2 mi. Just past the next creek after Lightning, trail enters nest of jackstraw but does not emerge on other side. The blowdown treacherously obscures the left turn to river crossing. I finally spotted sawn logs on S bank, and forded. The 7.5' map photocopy was handy, altimeter too. S bank is easier to follow, but you're often following nothing but the cut logs of the Sept. 2002 trail crew who cut the last of many dozens of blowdown just in time for me, 9/02. Now, their cuts were saving my sorry ass again. Crossing back to the N above a waterfall gorge (campsite here N side), it gets worse. Very thick brush and blowdown. Trail long abandoned. Reopening will be a huge job. Slow, careful trailfinding; sometimes visible tread, often just old log cuts. I've never had an altimeter before; useful here. In the last, worst nest of jackstraw, I spotted an unmapped switchback by pure luck, followed it into a tornado swath of huge downed trees, gave up, and resolved to escape upwards to the visible open fire-cleared slopes above and the Foam Basin sheep trail. Luck more than skill brought me across the tread again, and it was easier thereafter, above 4000' or so. Charming moss-covered tread, very brushy but easy to follow. Cross a steep rocky ravine to a bench mark (4532') on the far side, then cross back to the switchback you just missed. Did same thing last time. Fine spring 1/4 - 1/2 mi. below the top. The PCT looked like I-5. Spoke 5 PCTers, camped at White Pass. Fine views that disappeared overnight. DAY 9 9/12 White Pass to N Fk Sauk More rain, low viz. Got to leave a thank-you note at the trail crew's tool stash. Horse packers bringing in a hunter (High Hunt started 9/15, be aware of this, met 2 climbers who were not). Thrilling sun breaks. A wonderful trip despite the normal weather and trenchfoot. My ambitious high-route plans (Dolly-Gamma, Upper SUiattle, Triad Ck, Clark Mtn High Rte) were immediately discarded as embarrassingly delusional. I considered bailing at 3 of 4 escape points. Nearly all meals cooked thru the door of the tent in rain or wind. I never used any sun gear, the tele lens, the bug dope, or the water filter (took the filter for the same reason I took the down bag; I never filter or get sick). Love/hate relationship with the 6.5' bamboo hiking stick: always in the way, very handy for fords, steep descents, rough stuff, jackstraw, heavy load, doesn't dig up trails like those ski-pole things do. The jury is still out. Don't start a long trip with new gear you've not shaken-down: the critical hipbelt on my brand-new backpack proved too big, and would not ride high enough! Had my shirt off for 10 min. Never took off my inner layer. Early fall color, a goshawk, a big bear up close. Tactfully, the weather waited a decent interval -- Granite Falls -- before pulling the veil to reveal an orange crescent moon in a deep, clear sky. Sunny in Seattle at work next day. Just walking the dog.