Road/Trailhead
I drove in the night before and camped at the Honeymoon campground, which is first come first served and is roughly 15 mins down the road from the TH. Much better option than camping at the actual th because there is more privacy and an actual pit toilet, which was very clean and stocked with TP (this is the last toilet before the th) The th itself does not have any facilities, it is marked by a trailhead sign, and there is room for roughly 10 cars in the small pullout. There were 5 cars when I arrived at 5:30 am, all from backpackers already at the lake.

The road itself is in good shape, paved until the last 4 miles, and then the gravel is also doable in any car, a few bumps and rocks to look out for, but overall great easy road. Watch out for deer and cattle though. I saw many deer driving in, and on the way out I encountered a small group of cows. So mind the speed.

Route
I took the direct ridge approach up and down Big Craggy. This report will cover that route, I didn't do the full traverse to west craggy.

Copper Glance trail
This part is very quick, nicely graded trail, only one small blowdown to negotiate. The copper mine is gated but it's cool to see inside as there are still the original minecart tracks.

Meadow and Forest
The point where this route diverges from the copper glance trail is when you reach the open grassy meadow on the right. Here is where I cut up to gain the ridge. This section was the most annoying for me, as there are a few plants with burrs that stuck all over my legs. The navigation isn't too difficult, just stay on the ridge and you're good. A few times I connected with a game trail or faint boot path, but mostly it's just a bushwhack. Not too brushy, especially once you get to about 6500 feet. The whole forest was a burn zone so it's pretty open. I saw a few deer and grouse in this section.

The forest thins out around 7000 feet and the views open up, more of a boot path emerges and it becomes easier to slog up.

Scree/Scramble
Once I broke the tree line I kept to the ridge then traversed slightly left to connect with a gully. Previous reports mentioning loose scree and choss are accurate. This is very loose and there is the potential to dislodge some larger rocks in a few spots.

As far as scrambling it was very low class 3 in just a few places. Really the bigger challenge is contending with the slippery terrain and loose rock. I was very glad to finally connect with the summit ridge.

Helmet is a must, the moment you get on some larger chunkier scree it's helmet time.

Summit
The summit is stunning. So remote with 360 views of pristine wilderness and forest. This is a double summit so there is an east and west summit about 500 feet apart. It's unclear which one is taller so I tagged them both. It's worth going to both because the view changes a little.

Didn't see a register(but I didn't go digging for it)

I spent an hour up there watching the clouds burn off and enjoying some well-earned summit snacks.

Return
Going down I opted to take some dirt/scree and ski down, this is more direct from the saddle just east of the east peak. This was a much safer and easier descent I think than reversing my exact route up. Also made things a lot faster.

The end of this landed me in a beautiful grove of larch trees. After that I traversed along the side heading back toward the ridge. After reconnecting I took the same route out.

I didn't see a single other soul on route all day, it was great solitude in the alpine.

Larch report
The larch trees are golden! I could see the whole copper glance basin and they all looked yellow, and the grove I passed through was also pretty much at peak. Really grateful to get a place like that all to myself.

Overall great day chasing Bulgers. One day I may return for West Craggy, it's certainly a place worth returning to.

Additional notes:

• Over half this route is off trail navigation

• Helmets are a must (and I wish I had brought my gaiters)

• I wouldn't climb this with a party any larger than 3, this is a good duo or solo climb. So much loose rock make this a hazard the more people are on it

• Skill level wise, while this is an “easier” Bulger I would not call this a beginner friendly climb, get experience on this type of terrain and with route-finding in the alpine before attempting

See more photo here: https://www.hippohamster.com/posts/north_cascades/big_craggy_west_craggy/

Day 1

We left home around 8:30 am on Saturday, stopped for lunch in Winthrop, and arrived at the trailhead around 2:30 pm. It was a long drive. To our surprise, about twenty cars were already there. We had expected fewer people given the remote location, but Copper Glance is apparently a semi-popular hike, especially during larch season.

The entire trail passes through a burn area, but the trail is in great shape. We went off-trail before a tarn following our GPS track. The route we took on the way up wasn’t ideal, but on the descent we found a better way that stays on the left side of the creek—definitely the preferred option. At 6400 ft, we stopped to cook dinner since we didn’t want to carry extra water to camp for ramen. Keep in mind there is no water beyond this point.

As we reached camp, snow started falling. That was unexpected since none of the weather models on Windy had forecasted it. The snow became heavy at times, so we quickly set up our tent at 6600 ft and retreated inside for the evening.

It took about 3 hours to reach camp with 2800 ft of elevation gain.

Day 2

The night was cold, dropping to about 28 degrees. We had planned to start hiking before sunrise but didn’t get going until about 30 minutes after. A thin layer of snow covered the slopes near the saddle and big craggy, making the west ridge of Big Craggy a little slippery. Thankfully, the climb was still straightforward and the slick rock only slowed us down slightly.

After summiting Big Craggy, we returned to the saddle and traversed the ridge toward West Craggy. This route is less direct though snow free. We aimed for a notch, crossed two bowls, and reached easier terrain on the far side. For the descent, we decided to drop straight down from the 8000 ft point on the ridge. At first we couldn’t see the route, but since many others had descended that way, we gave it a try. It turned out to involve some class 3 downclimbing through a cliff band with some exposure. A fun variation, though not necessarily faster. If you prefer to keep the trip at class 2, retracing your route is the better choice.

The day took 10.5 hours total back to the car, with 2800 ft of gain and 5600 ft of descent.

The road (5130 off the W. Chewuch Rd out of Winthrop) is in excellent condition as is the trail ("Copper Glance" lake). Larches are at their peak which probably accounts for overflow parking. I left the trail ~5900'. Scree starts at ~7500'. Still, a better route than trying to go from the tarn up (too brushy and even more scree). I came down that way. Ridge has 2 high points but no register, no cairn at either. 8 mi, 4500'

A few notes to add to previous trip reports:

These peaks should be renamed Big Chossy and West Chossy.  These are the chossiest peaks I have ever climbed.

The shortcut trail which bypasses the copper mine no longer exists

The trail register on Big Craggy is either missing or well hidden

When you drop off of West Craggy, most of the gulleys cliff out, so you need to shift gulleys, generally moving to the right

The valley off of West Craggy, heading towards Copper Glance Lake is filled with talus, so very slow going.

Great views and challenging and long.

Ngie and I got up to the summit of Big Craggy Peak, after car camping at the Honeymoon Campground the night before. This small campground is about 3.5 miles from the Copper Glance Trailhead.

The creek crossing which is about a half mile from the trailhead was a bit tricky, as the creek was running pretty good, and some of the small logs needed to cross it were partially submerged. Having hiking poles helped out immensely. Would not want to slip here.

Up around 5700ft you come up to a vast meadow with a fantastic view of Sherman Peak. It is still too early for the flower show in the meadow, bt the view from here waw spectacular. Here we left the trail and headed straight up the ridge to Big Craggy Peak. The beginning of this ascent starts of in the meadow, and then then goes up through an old burn. Lots of new growth happening here as there are a few seedlings, and lots of grass, and new wildflowers starting to bloom. As we got higher it began to get more rocky, and around 7800ft the grade steepened, and we began to encounter loose scree and rocks. This was the most difficult part of the climb, as all the rocks were loose, and were moving with almost every step. Ngie went way right to get on more solid rock, and I went left to find the same.  At around 8000ft I found some solid rock to scramble up, which was a lot nicer. There was a bit of loose scree near the summit ridge, but it was much easier that down below.

Once on the ridge went over to the first highpoint which is the summit per the map. Not knowing if this was the true highpoint we went to the one on the end of the ridge. They are nearly identical heights. Hard to tell which one is higher. Spectacular views from the summit! Wow! We spent a good amount of time up here trying to figure out wat all the peaks were. So many North Cascades and Pasayten peaks visible!!

On the way down some clouds rolled in, and the wind picked up. Once we were back down on the trail we heard some trees fall, and sure enough one had fell across the trail. We removed some of the limbs, and hiked back out.

On our drive out we encountered a couple of trees down across the road. Fortunately I had my saw with me, and we were able to remove these trees, and continue down the road. Down further just past the intersection with NF 5220 (Cub Pass road) a huge tree fell across the road. There was no way my saw could cut through this. Ngie knew that NF road 5220 would get us out of there, so we turned around, and headed up that way. Another stuck car followed us. We encountered a couple of other fallen trees that we small enough, that we were able to clear the road, and continue. This road is narrow in spots, but any car can make it, as the sedan that was following us made it out too. Hopefully they will get that big tree cleared. It's a good reminder to carry a saw!

We started our hike at 7:05 am and finished at 2:30 pm 7.4 miles with 4748 gain