Railroad Creek to Hart Lake,Upper Lyman Lake #1256.2, Lyman Lake and Cloudy Pass

If you've never taken the Lake Chelan boat to Lucerne and then school bus to Holden Village on your way to a number of North Cascade trailheads (I hadn't), it's kind of a pain in the butt. It's also expensive, between parking at the boat company dock ($6/day), the boat ride ($46/person rt on the express plus $24 rt for the dog), the school bus ride ($10 rt). BUT, it's worth it since in gives you a head start on some SPECTACULAR scenery. Also, Holden Village generously lets returning backpackers take showers for free.

The trail is in terrific shape (we saw the ranger and a FS employee doing trail maintanence this weekend). No bugs except for some pesky gnats at our lower Lyman Lake camp. The huckleberries are all done-not a productive year, said the ranger. There was a dusting of fresh snow on the tops of the surrounding peaks. There were only a few other hikers in the area (though there were two parties of hunters getting ready for high buck season)-lots of empty campsites to choose from. There are lots of great day hikes and explorations to do from Lyman-we went a ways over Cloudy Pass, then up some side trails (the trails stop and start-just keep going up) to a knoll below Cloudy Peak (fabulous views), and to Lyman Glacier. We camped at Hart Lake our last night so we would be closer to Holden to catch the bus back, and we saw bear twice way up on the mountainside.