Chewuch River Trail, Lesamiz, Remmel Cutoff, Boundary Trail - Pasayten, Tungsten & Cathedral Pass Loop — Saturday, Aug. 15, 2015

North Cascades > Pasayten

Me and my daughter hiked the Cathedral Pass Loop, almost (but not exactly) as described, taking 5 days to do so. As many people have pointed out, the maps around Remmel Lake as well as Cathedral and Apex are all wrong. I have updated OpenStreetMap.org, which now has the correct trails and markings. You can get prettier views on WayMarkedTrails.org. Day 1 The Chewuch (that’s “Che-wuck”) River Trail (510) is very gentle going north, slight ups and downs. However, the terrain is entirely burned for the first 7 miles or so. Has a certain eerie beauty to it. The trail intersects the Cathedral Driveway Trail (510A) at 5 miles, the abandoned Fire Creek Trail at 5.8, and finally the Basin Creek (360) at 6.3. Note that Basin Creek Trail is closed due to the Newby Lake Fire. We met a couple of parties coming back, and played leapfrog with a group of energetic high-school boys and their harried chaperones; they went north on Tungsten Trail, though. At 8 miles the trails reaches a huge campsite with a corral fit for a cavalry regiment. The trail then crosses Horseshoe Creek (you have your choice of hopping rocks or walking logs), and turns west. It immediately comes to the intersection with Tungsten Trail and changes character --- it becomes a forest walk in a young, burned, somewhat spooky forest. Another mile on Chewuch Trail brings you to Tungsten Creek with much cozier (though still close to the trail) campsites --- our destination for the night (9.5 miles). Day 2 Continuing on Chewuch Trail brings few views, though the forest gets progressively healthier. After the junction with the Four Point Lake Trail, the trails turns northwest and gets a bit rougher, with some trees to climb under. Previous trip reports made us anxious with anticipation of a nasty, rocky, and rooty climb. However, it never materialized! The trail is only rough in comparison with its previous, walk-in-the-park section. It never even comes close to such Seattle-area joys as Rachel Lake or Lake Serene. The views start to improve, and the trail passes the junction with the old, abandoned stretch of 510 (the one that used to go south of Remmel Lake). Somewhat confusingly, the trail you are on now (heading northwest) is the new 510. It all makes perfect sense unless you are familiar with how it used to be. Finally, you reach the top in a pleasant forest, and the junction with the new Lesamiz Trail which, if followed, will take you straight to the Amphitheater Basin. But we continued on the new Chewuch Trail (510). Very soon, Remmel Lake made its appearance, followed by the signs for the Remmel Cutoff Trail (494). The Cutoff heads sharply south, while the mainline 510 continues west where it terminates at the Boundary Trail (see next day). The Remmel Lake is sublime, mostly for being surrounded by a wide open basin, which in turn is surrounded by jugged mountains. We met not a single person since crossing the Horseshoe creek the day before and until arriving at Remmel. At the lake, we found a very well behaved equestrian party who would become our intermittent companions for the next few days. We chose a campsite not far from the lake, and away from the horses. 9 miles, plus explorations. Day 3 In the morning, we continued on the Remmel Cutoff Trail just to see where it went. It went west to the Boundary Trail (1.5 miles total), not far from the Andrews Creek junction. We turned northeast on the Boundary Trail, and soon (0.6) came to the junction with the new Chewuch Trail (510), where we would be had we not taken the Cutoff. Soon after that --- the junction with the (real) Lesamiz Trail, and the trail enters Amphitheater Basin. For us, this was the highlight of the trip. My photos do not do it justice. The key is the vastness of the plain, dotted with tarns, all at 7000ft, dominated by 8000ft peaks, with the views for hundreds of miles. The trail forks --- the left fork goes to the Lower Cathedral Lake, the right fork to the Upper Cathedral. We went right. Soon after, small but extremely concentrated blueberries appear, and an unmarked trail veers to the right. We never got a chance to explore that --- does it go to Amphitheater Mountain? After crossing a rockslide beneath vertical black walls, the trail comes over an unnamed pass and to the Upper Cathedral Lake. The lake is very pretty, of course, but for me the best part is the Amphitheater Mountain behind us, looking distinctly like something from the Lord of the Rings. The campsites are concentrated in two areas: the hill northwest of the lake (where the trail enters), and the larch grove to the east of the lake. The former is more horse-oriented and official-looking, the latter wilder, but with literally a dozen fire rings, if you look for them. Yet after exploring all around, we went with the official site and never regretted it. Upon arrival we were visited by a mountain goat who examined our campsite carefully, found nothing of value, and left when I stood up. We explored the old trail to the Lower Cathedral Lake (I marked it on OpenStreetMap). The trail is clearly maintained by someone, and is hard to miss. Follow the Boundary Trail west from Upper Cathedral. In a few hundred feet it will switch back, and almost immediately after that, you will see a steep-ish rocky trail heading down to the right. The trail is in great shape, and gets you to the promontory above Lower Cathedral Lake (and the official trail) in 0.7 miles. Here we reconnected with the equestrians from Remmel Lake (out for a day hike), and the energetic boys from Day 1. From there, a couple of fishermen trails lead down to the lake --- one is marked with cairns; we took the other. Day 4 The next day, we headed east on the Boundary Trail to Cathedral Pass (7600ft). The trail was gentle, the views got predictably better, and the 360-degree panorama at the pass is pretty remarkable. After the pass, the trail heads down on a long traverse to the Apex Mountain and Apex Pass. The highlight of that walk are the views back to Cathedral Mountain and Cathedral Pass --- we finally realized where the name came from! As we were getting closer and closer to Apex Pass, I started to worry. We were only half a mile from the 7800ft pass, and we were only at 7200ft! Just how steep was the climb going to be? The answer ended up being simpler than that --- Green Trails has a misprint, and every guide book author has repeated that misprint without checking. Apex Pass is a shy 7300ft high. It is also boring. The top is flat with little in the way of views, other than Apex Mountain itself. But we did met Freebird --- a PNT through-hiker. He looked remarkably like a guy out for a quick stroll after work, not someone in the middle of a 160 mile trek between resupplies. Good luck! He described a few other through-hikers we might meet who were coming up behind him, but the two we did meet didn’t match his descriptions. From Apex Pass, the trail drops down to Tungsten Mine, and the intersection with Tungsten Trail, passing what appears to be an abandoned trail to Tungsten Lake. The mine is a great discovery experience, we enjoyed it a ton. I don’t want to post pictures, as this seems like something people should experience first-hand. After some climbing around and a brief lunch, we headed down Tungsten Trail, which is a bit of a muddy rocky mess at the top. Once it evens out, though it gets quite pleasant. It was here that we ran into our first actual bear in the wilderness, standing about 50-60 yards away from us down the trail. We stared at the bear, and the bear stared at us, not moving. However, at the loud yell of “Hey, bear-bear!”, the bear promptly remembered what it was supposed to do, and bolted down the hill away from us. We stuck around, singing bear-themed ditties, just in case any of its friends haven’t heard us yet. We then proceeded down the trail, but never saw anything unusual. The rest of Tungsten Trail was steeply downhill, losing about 1000ft in the last mile on well-built switchbacks. We arrived back at the junction with Chewuch Trail thus completing the loop, and set up camp for the night. 12 miles. Day 5 This was our return day, following Chewuch Trail back to the trailhead. We had already walked up this trail with full packs, going down was going to be a breeze. Except that there was no breeze, and it was 95F. So we walked fast (for us). As we drove home, evacuation orders were being issued for Twisp and Winthrop.

More Information on this Trip Report

• http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/48.9497/-120.1784