Enchanted Valley

August 5: Jeff, Neil and I got to Enchanted Valley Trailhead and left car with heavy packs about ten-thirty after a long drive around from near Seattle. Plan was to get into and explore Muncaster Basin with a hope to cross to the Quinault and come out the Skyline Trail in nine days. Great weather, hot. We walked in the three miles or so to the bridge over the river and a mile further on hit Fire Creek and here we left the trail for a week. Started up the ridge north of Fire Creek and worked uphill all afternoon. Late afternoon in thick going found a level place and camped. Jeff and Neil went off for water and found it a ways off.

August 6: Broke camp and started climbing the steep slope. Rough Bushwhacking, lots of undergrowth and fallen logs, steep, brush, devil's club, rough going. Trail got t=steeper and ridge narrower and narrower until we were on this knife edge and it got sketchy, at least for me. Managed to work around some gulies and break above trees to alipin bench and some snow, then leading down fifty feet to a nice tarn and a great site on a knoll. Stopped after six or seven horus of hiking. Camped there, great views of ridges before us, a basin, and behidn us the valley.

August 7: After some searching bushwhacked around the shoulder of some peaks to a high pass just east of Muncaster Mountain. Had to cross Fire Creek headwaters on steep slope and then climb to the pass. On the other side we faced Muncaster Basin, raw rock, a lot of snow, and peaks everywhere. Slid downt he snow to the basin and then walked across the basin and up to a bench on the other side. Made camp here. Jeff and Neil explored all the nearby peaks and I wandered down low. That evening great sunset but clouds coming in, we could see west to Olympus area and the range that marks the Skyling Trail. Ahead we could also see Mount Taylor/Delebarre and it was obvious there was no easy route across it. The country was damn rugged. Saw a lot of bears.

August 8: Clouds rolled in and rain started. we worked along the ridge and the Muncaster area and came to a big cliff area where there was no easy route forward. Had to drop packs and Jeff and Neil worked way down then over to find the way forward. I made up camp and watched a bear wander within fifty yards. That evening it rained and was dark fog and we camped on rocks on a knoll while the rain fell and it looked bleak.

August 9: This day the weather better and we packed up and worked down a snowchute and then across a knob to further basins approaching June 10 peak. Took our time, the country was just so beautiful. The close we got to Delebarre the more difficult it looked. We started to see that we wouldn't make the crossing and would have to take the alternate route out, which meant going ahead to the headwaters of Pyrites Creek and then bushwhacking back down to the Enchanted Valley Trail at Pyrites. Damn rough country between where we were and there. We made it to a lovely basin near June 10 peak and then climbed high above and found this fantastic spot way up high in the rocks and near snow, overlooking everything with June 10 behind us. That evening Jeff and Neil climbed Delebarre. Lovely night.

August 10: This day we decided to do some serious scouting forward. None of us wanted to backtrack over some of the sketchy areas we had traversed and we now knew we wouldn't ross Delebarre to Martin's Park. The route was not clear at all and looked forbidding. We all explored forward and north to get beyond June 10 peak and then see if we could find a way across about a half mile of serious and steep gullies that dropped a thousand feet in ridges down to the headwaters of Godkin Creek, which we could see 2000 feet below us. We decided to on the next day make a run for a way to get past the rough gullies and find the headwaters of Pyrites Creek. I had tried years ago to come up that trail and had made it to treeline but it was a long time ago and a long ways off from where we were.

That evening the fog rolled in down low, spectacular, and it rained a little, but the next day - August 11 - we had fine hot weather and we headed off to find Pyrites.

August 11: I would bet the total distance as a crow flew between our camp and the area we thought we could get over to Pyrites - a possible pass sough of Chumney Peak - is less than two mile, maybe less than that. We went the first mile fine and then the adventure began. It was thick thick gnarly brush and trees and then steep exposed gullies, knotty tangles, more brush, so bad that visibility was three feet, and we had to forge ahead then be blocked by a gully cliff, then back up r go uphill 300 feet and try again or drop down 500 feet and try again, and we struggled and pushed and fought through the country and the hours passed and I started to thinkl we're gonna have to backtrack. But we kept on and after five hours going a quarter mile - five hours! - Neil found the way and we broke out into some lovely small basins, a great campsite overlooking Godkin, with a nicesaddle 300 feet above that overlooked Pyrits and the Enchanted Valley. We were stoked.

August 12: Packed up and climbed to saddle then started down through teh blueberries and alipne country headed northeast trying to work around east before dropping down into the valley. Walked a mile or two then started donhill, another stiff bushwhack getting thicker as we went, eventually finding ourselves having to drop into a steep gulley 200 feet deep then climbing out the other side and then we found more open going. But then we ended up starting back a bit toward the south and got into the gullies and climb-outs again, up and down, false starts, bushwhacking back up, hours and hours, but getting closer and closeer to the valey floor. But then within a half mile or mile of the river, we could even hear it, we ran into this huge blowdown I remembered from years ago and it took us two hours to climb under over and through the huge logs and devil's club before we found the river and the outlet of Pyrite's Creek. On a trail at last. We made camp and relaxed.

August 13: This day we walekd the 10 miles out to our care, a total breeze after the days off trail, just like wandering a wide highway, packs not lights, food gone, and free for once from bloody legs and slashing branches.

So we didn't make the Muncaster-Quinault traverse - we'll have to try that another year - and the Skylign Trail will have to wait, but we saw some absolutrely great country I bet few get intio, and I think we missed whatever route there is to get t Pyrites, because the route we took was a nightmare. Great fun after it was over, though.