Brushy, buggy and beautiful! Keep your pants on for this hike, and you may wish for long sleeves too. This trail takes you through one avalanche meadow after another, and each of these meadows is full of bracken fern, bushes and flowers that are up to 8 feet high and completely obscure the trail at your feet. When wet, you'll be soaked; when dry, like it was on our trip, you will be covered in pollen.

The good news is that the wildflowers are still fabulous on this hike. Even in the lower meadows, where they are past their prime, there are many varieties to impress a casual observer and to make a wildflower expert start cataloging their finds.

My friend and I started out on a Sunday cursing the green stuff and using way too much bug spray to fend off the mosquitoes. The way was gentle, however, so we made good time to mile 4.5, where a large and pleasant campsite opens up to a broad meadow with views of Wenatchee and Cady Ridges, Kodak Peak and what we think was June Mountain.

At this point, the trail starts to climb fairly steeply to reach Meander Meadow in about 6.25 miles. This is an idyllic locale, with a winding creek (headwaters to the Little Wenatchee perhaps?) serpentining through the verdant meadow. The flowers here are a different variety - close-cropped, low-to-the-ground and more sparse than I would have expected. But lovely nevertheless. There are four or five roomy campsites here, along with a pit toilet.

After setting up camp here, we ate and took a hike to escape the mosquitoes. We headed up the new trail that takes hikers to the PCT at Sauk Pass. Most maps show the trail on the west side of the meadow (Cady Ridge side), but in 2007 a new trail was developed on the Wenatchee Ridge side. It stays above Meader Meadow, protecting its boggy expanse from added feet, and traverses one of the most beautiful wildflower gardens I have seen in Washington. It is in high peak right now.

At Sauk Pass, the views open up immensely. Ridge after ridge can be seen on every horizon, and you can even see Glacier Peak. It was near sunset, and we hoped to climb Kodak Peak but ran out of time. We did make our way over to Wenatchee Ridge where we could get a better view of Glacier Peak glowing pink in the setting sun. Then we high-tailed it back to camp.

On the way out the next morning, we met hikers who saw a bear in one of the meadows, and we were treated to a big lump of bear scat in the trail that hadn't been there the day before. Berries are green at best right now, so that's not what the bears are eating.

Both my friend and I finished up the trip with massive allergy attacks. Bring along allergy medicine if you are susceptible. And I recommend a hiking pole for whacking back the brush. But if you like wildflowers, head out there soon to enjoy.

Set out from the trailhead at 440PM Friday. Arrived at the meadow at the base of the vertical bit close to twilight. Camped in the field with two other parties. The campsite just inside the trees on the left of the trail as you enter the field is very nice if available. There is uncrowded tent space three in this

The trail in was good. Climbs steadily the whole way through fragrant meadows, breathing forests, and over snowmelt. We encountered a few blowdowns; though none was major. The dogs got under/over all of them just fine. The trail was overgrown with soft vegetation in spots (which from my experience is standard for this trail). Plenty of snowmelt water all along the route. No major washouts. Plenty of bear poop right in the trail, but no bears.

On the second day we did the vertical bit. It's nonstop uphill, but afforded occasional breezy, shady passages ideal for the odd moment of rest & recoupment. The trail was substantially snow free the whole way up to the top, where we had to cross three increasingly large snowfields: snowfields which turned back the two other parties on the trail that day, giving us the meadow to ourselves.

We slept outside both nights no problem. Bugs: no problem. The dogs were quiet both nights.

We had meant to take the Cady Ridge loop, but saw as we ascended it was still snowed in over most of its length. We followed the trail up along the N wall above Meander Meadow and ran into deep snow at the top.

Sunday AM back down the snow, hill climb, and walk out.

My buddies Cathy and Cedar accompanied me today for a ski of Wenatchee Ridge. We left stormy skies and drizzle in Western Washington and headed for forecasted sunny Eastern Washington and Blewett Pass. As expected, we hit sun around Tumwater Canyon and fresh baked goodies at the Homefires Bakery east of Leavenworth. Did not disappoint! The snow conditions at the trailhead were skimpy indeed, but the decision was made to ski ahead for the possibility of more snow. It was a good choice. We started out on a couple inches of snow, but were soon at about a foot. Then more. So far so good for an early season trip. The views begin soon here. It feels open from the trailhead, but you can see the Stuart range and elsewhere at about a mile. From there views are pretty much continuous. The distant views are nice, but I like looking at the close in hills. Lots of rolling hills with Ponderosa Pines. Nice. At about the three mile point there is a flat spot with a good place for lunch, but we continued on traversing below a high point until the road deteriorated into brush. Fine, we went back to the flat spot for lunch. Looking for more fun, we continued on a cat track to the high point, but the snow got too skimpy here so we went by foot. The views didn't improve much since trees closed in. Still worth it. Back to our skis and out. The road had deteriorated a bit by now due to two trucks that had gone up, so we walked the last 1/2 mile or so. Still, not bad for an early season ski.

Our campsites were at Dishpan Gap on the PCT and we selected to hike in via the steep Cady Ridge Trail which turned out to be a great choice - get the steep section done while the legs were still fresh. The next day we had a great day-hike further north on the PCT to Portal Peak - highly recommended.

However, we opted to leave via the Little Wenatchee River Trail (1525) and found it to be incredibly overgrown - - on the verge of being dangerously unusable. I read the last entry (July 18, 2009) with amazement - it appears that a week's worth of growth (due to heavy rain and intense heat) has induced a massive growth spurt in the plants. We spent hours slogging through a veritable jungle of ferns and other meadow greens that were chest high and even over our heads in many places. We were fortunate to be heading downhill - I cringe to think about pressing uphill through that maze of mother nature.

Hiking through the meadows, we had tall plant slapping us in the face and could not dare look down to see our feet nor the trail which made it dangerous when encountering rocks, downed logs, and stream beds. For the entire length (6 miles) of trail, about 80% is in these meadows, punctuated here and there with a few stretches of forest trail.

I would NOT recommend this trail at least not right now during the recent stretch of hot sun and intense rain which has caused seriously overgrown conditions. Perhaps later in the season it may get beaten back to some semblance of a trail and be enjoyable again as earlier trekkers have reported.