White Pass - Pilot Ridge Loop — Friday, Aug. 16, 2013

North Cascades > Mountain Loop Highway

There's no place I'd rather be for my birthday than in the mountains and my companions for this adventure were old friends Blissman, Yoyo and Phlemy. The route was the North Fork Sauk River trail to Red Pass, White Pass, the PCT to Dishpan Gap then Blue Lakes with an exit via Pilot Ridge. We had a leisurely six days to do this allowing lots of side trips with some fishing thrown in. The North Fork Sauk trail is very nice with lots of huge trees and open forest for about five miles to Mackinaw Shelter where the biting flies appeared which plagued us the entire way to Red Pass. This is also where the trail turned steep. It seems like that's the way of it. Just when the trail turns steep and hot, and we are the most defenseless, the flies bite! Anyhow, from Mackinaw we gained about 4000' and by the time we arrived at Red Pass some of us were pretty well spent. So, we made camp just below the pass at a scenic campsite with snowmelt for water and great views. Unfortunately, we also had neighbors who were downright nasty and finding our friendly company unwanted, left us a hate mail and broke one of our stoves while we were out having an adventure. A very unpleasant encounter. Fortunately for us, we only met nice folks for the remainder of our trip. Next day we explored White Chuck Meadows and up to White Chuck Glacier. Gorgeous and a bit rugged. We met a very nice group of folks camping below the glacier going for the summit. Hi, Ken! Our third day was heading for a camp in Dishpan Gap with a side trip to the summit of White Mountain. The views from here are fabulous and we could see where we'd been exploring the day before. A track leaves from White Pass making it an easy climb of 1100'. We camped just short of Dishpan Gap with a small stream, but hoards of mosquitos. It's a toss up, but I'd probably opt for Dishpan Gap for a camp spot rather than our bit of bug land. Our fourth and fifth nights were spent at Blue Lake with primo camp sites and great swimming. Our layover day was spent hiking up Johnson Mt., doing laundry, and munching on blueberries. Our route out was Pilot Ridge with views for the first four miles or so of the Monte Cristos and Sloan Peak. Quite nice, but the flies attacked us once we'd entered the forest at about 5000' inspiring us to blast our way down to the crossing of the Sauk and on to the trailhead. To sum up: the blueberries are fabulous! The trails are in great shape, although the Pilot Ridge trail is a bit rough in places. The crossing of the North Fork at the junction of Pilot Ridge is just fine with the only difficulty being getting on and off the log spanning the river which is itself very wide and level. The Blue Lake High Route is rough and steep, but I found it quite fun.....narrow and rugged like trails used to be before they started building them to posh standards. The flowers are pretty much gone, but the blueberries are thick especially on the Pilot Ridge trail. It was a bit busy in the area, much more so than I would have thought. We had company every day with most people doing a Steven's Pass to Stehekin route. It was a great time and the beer and grinders at Omega's in Granite Falls were the perfect way to end the trip!