Plan A involved climbing St. Helens. After everyone bailed, we decided to go for something more weather-friendly, and settled on Lake Mary, in Icicle Canyon. When the weather there started acting sketchy, we opted out of that plan and looked high and low for drier weather. Finally around noon on Friday, we packed the car and headed for the Methow, with Foggy Dew Falls and beyond as the objective. Many, many, many hours later, we arrived in the Gold Creek drainage and opted for a nice campfire and some car camping and beers, with a pact to get a reasonably early start on our hike. The car camping, especially the primitive variety, is of excellent quality along FS road 4340. I heard R get up and start the coffee, and promised myself I’d just sleep for a few more minutes. An hour later, at 10:30, I finally crawled out of bed. Note to self: Day job making me too tired, must quit job and devote self full-time to leisure activities. We reached the trailhead at the crack of noon to find just three vehicles, including a Forest Service truck. We encountered a smattering of people on the way in, and one mother grouse doing her best to act injured so we wouldn’t disturb her nest. We were so impressed with her display that we opted to not eat her offspring. Shortly after we started up the trail, a cascading falls appeared on our left. We had a slurp of water and admired our speedy pace, as the guide indicates Foggy Dew Falls to be 2 ½ miles in. Sometime later we saw a sign next to another tumble of water indicating it to be Foggy Dew Falls. Guess we weren’t so speedy after all! We expected to see a ton of dirt bikes and mounatin bikes, but didn’t see a one until the Merchants Basin/Cooney Lake intersection at five miles from the car. Here we met a lone Forest Service ranger on a dirt bike. He was toting a chainsaw and had done a boatload of trail maintenance in the area that day. We never once had to step over any deadfall, thanks to his effort. After bidding him farewell, we proceeded to make the steep climb to Merchant’s Basin. It was a pleasant walk with great views down the valley, but in summer it would be a blisteringly hot misery-fest. A long mile later, Merchant’s Basin unfolded before us. Hoary Marmots loped about and whistled to one another, and wildflowers abounded. There was a lot of horse manure at the larger camps, and one privy destroyed by the winter’s snow. We crossed the middle fork of Foggy Dew Creek and found a reasonably dry camp. There’s a fair bit of snow up there, but it is going fast and we were entirely on dry ground. It was a nice treat to be camped at 7000 feet so early in the season. Note: If the Basin is too windy, there are nice camps just below, near the boulder field, and amid some gigantic larch trees. We had a nice small fire (wow! it’s allowed here!) and some dinner and whiskey, and enjoyed the longest day of the year until it became too chilly to sit around any more. We snuggled in to our tiny tent for some shut-eye, with the full intention of getting up and hiking over to Sunshine Lake in the morning. At 9:40 it was warm enough to move around without too much shivering, so the plan to visit the lake went out the window, so to speak. After much coffee, we bombed down the trail. We made it back to the car in two and a half hours, and then fantasized about the great grub at the Winthrop Brewery until at last we reached that objective in mid-afternoon. The Foggy Dew Trail is not to be missed. It’s in great condition, with nice views and waterfalls, and tons of wildlife and flowers. Warnings of hordes of motorcycles should be ignored, at least early in the summer.

We had planned to do Horseshoe Basin, Tungsten Mine, etc., but it was sleeting at the trailhead – neither one of us were prepared for a wet, cold trip, so we decided to think about switching trip locations. The problem was, we didn’t have maps for anywhere else. Imagine an engineer spontaneously switching backpacking locations on the fly. Oh, ho! Now imagine MtnMike as that engineer. Ah! A double-whammy! After some galumphing and harrumphing, we decided upon Sunrise Lake and the peaks Navarre via the Foggy Dew trail out of Carlton, on Hwy. 153 South of Twisp. (we obtained some maps from friends of Mikes when we re-grouped in Winthrop). Though the Foggy Dew trail is a motorbike trail, we never encountered any. The trail is in excellent condition, yet dusty as hell. Several inches of dry, sandy dirt fluff around your legs with every step. It’s not too annoying unless you are a contact-wearer. The trail winds through beautiful forest along Foggy Dew Creek, which sometimes rushes through rocky deep canyons, sometimes tumbles across large boulders. Foggy Dew Falls is very beautiful, plunging into a pretty gorge below. At 5 miles is the Cooney Lake junction. We opted to hike the 2 miles to Sunrise Lake because it is a “hiker only” destination, whereas Cooney is subject to motorized visitors. At one mile beyond the junction is beautiful Merchants’ Basin. There are a couple of horsecamps here, and a creek running through the meadow. Cross the creek, and the trail winds up through a canopy of colorful, golden larches and to pretty Sunrise Lake, where there are about 3 campsites. The larch color was just about at its height here – beautiful against the emerald green of the lake. Saturday, we found the old, easy-to-follow unmaintained trail around the lake and up the saddle where we scrambled pk. 8002. From here are spectacular views of Silver Star Peak, Martin Peak, all the peaks around Lake Chelan, Mt. Baker, Glacier Peak, Mt. Rainier. We continued on the old trail down, down, down to Horsethief Basin, and skirted the edge of the remains of the Rex Cr fire and up to a saddle leading to N. Navarre Peak. The trail to N Navarre is a well-kept trail, and boasts some nice rock walls. From the summit you can look smack-dab into the heart of the Railroad Creek drainage, see the mine there, and all the mountains surrounding the area – you know: the usual suspects. The summit register there has an entry in it from 1964! Note: On our way out, we noticed a “Trail Closed Due to Fire Damage” sign on the N Navarre trail. It was on the ground. I swear we didn’t see it before heading up. At any rate, the trail skirts the very edge of about 30 charred trees and doesn't pose a hazard. It's not clear whether the trail is indeed closed: the map at the trailhead of 'closed' and 'open' areas is very faded and hard to read. I am pleased to announce that Mike came out of the impromptu ordeal very well, despite the fact that he's an engineer, he's Mike, and he didn’t have the exact map he wanted. I never even wanted to kill him, not even once; even though I heard the word, “map” 8,015 times in 3 days (I counted). Sunrise is a wonderful lake, and the trail leading from the lake to the Navarres is very pretty. Check out these nifty photos. http://www.mtnmike.com/WTA/sunrise_lk.jpg http://www.mtnmike.com/WTA/to_sunrise_lk.jpg

Starting Saturday 7/13 I did a 4 day hike in the Sawtooth Ridge area northeast of Lake Chelan. This is a great ‘early season’ high country hike. This whole area (above around 6500 ft.) is mostly meadow with rocky peaks. While the alpine meadows of the main Cascades are still under snow this area is essentially snow free, with just enough snow left to make great pictures. The access road was in very good shape, paved to within about 4 miles of the trailhead. Access is off the Methow Valley highway a little north of the ‘town’ of Methow. The first day was up Foggy Dew Creek trail (#417 & #429) to camp at Cooney Lake for two nights (7-8 mi. 3700 ft elev. gain). Sunday was day hiking to explore the Cooney Lake area and hiking over the ridge toward Merchants Basin (trail #434), down Angels Staircase to Chelan Summit trail (#1259), then south to East Fork Prince Creek. Monday was moving camp from Cooney Lake up over the ridge to upper Merchants Basin, exploring Merchants Basin and hiking to Sunrise Lake (#417B). Tuesday was hiking out Merchants Basin trail to Foggy Dew trail and the trailhead. Cooney Lake and Sunrise Lake are at about 7200 ft. elevation and very picturesque. The hike was made easier with my pack goats to carry the load. There were lots of wildflowers, particularly in Merchants Basin and along the section of the Chelan Summit trail I hiked. This area is also beautiful in the fall when the Larch are golden. The trails were all snow free except two moderately steep snow patches on the trail from Cooney Lake over the ridge to Merchant basin, one a little above the lake and the other at the ridge crest, both were passable. The main trails (Foggy Dew, Chelan Summit, Martin Creek) in this area are open to motorcycles. As a result, these trails are very well graded and maintained thanks to our state gas tax dollars. There were a few trees down across the Sunrise Lake trail, but they were no problem. In the 4 days I met two motorcyclists on the trail, two horse parties and 4 hikers.

After a 4.5 hr drive we set off for a dusty eight mile trip to one of the most beautiful lakes in the Sawtooths. While the Foggy Dew trail is a ""motorcyle expressway"" we really only saw a few motorbikes, plus one horse party and a group of 24 mountain bikers. We arrived at the lake about 3:30 and promptly found a lakeside campsite (well hardened though I expect to find it off limits in the future) with morning and afternoon sun, surrounded by green larch just starting to turn yellow. Some remaining mosquitoes and flies found us quite quickly but long sleeves and pants solved that. Evening temperatures were quite mild for 7200' in September. A morning jaunt took us to the 8000' pass on Switchback Peak. The way is steep but safe. Once on top, sit for a while and take your time to trace the Chelan Crest trail route and pick out all the peaks. The view is great as you'd expect. Mt. Rainier, Glacier Peak, the Entiats, and the very tippy top of Baker. Several snow patches remain on the peak and by the lake, none on the trail. ""Mr. Bubbles"" a/k/a the ""Punmeister"" and I took several rolls of pictures as this was an exceedingly scenic destination that is well worth the dusty trip. If only the larch were yellow this would have been a 12 on a 10 point scale. With more time, we'd have liked to roam cross country though easy-looking meadows to Martin Peak, and take a side trip to Martin Lakes, but there's only so much you can do in a weekend.

A beautiful hike. Trail is very smooth, likely thanks to dirt-bikers. Rain a day or two earlier kept the dust to a minimum. Grade is very gentle for the first 5 or so miles, but not long after second junction (which is poorly marked - take right fork), begins a series of switchbacks which take you to the delightful Merchants Basin. Started sleeting - a very dry sleet - before junctions, then a breath-taking little blizzard on the switchbacks - then sunny skies as we reached the Basin. Cut-off to Sunrise Lake is just past the horsecamp in the Basin. The lake is in a gorgeous little cirque, but whoever named it Sunrise had a wicked sense of humor or visited it far earlier in the year. Was cold and started to snow hard at the lake. Too cold to relax, and being a good backpacker, I had not brought anything to start a fire. There were large patches of gentian, just past their peak, all around the east and south side of lake. Retired early and at 7am emerged from my tent to find the lake frozen thirty feet out from shore during the night, making me walk to the south end to fetch my morning coffee water. Sun was still not on lake or our camp when I crawled out of my sleeping bag for the second time at 10am. Broke camp and headed down to Basin, then up to Sawtooth Ridge. This sidetrip was a highlight. Looked right down on Clooney Lake and had wonderful views. Not much wildlife visible this time of year, though lots of tracks. Saw two folks on horses at pass, and they had seen cayotes in the basin. Wish my vision were better! A couple of trip notes....the mileage in the book, map and trail-signs are not in sync. Trail signage seemed way off. Also, we did see 7 dirt-bikers - five on the way up, and two on the way down, but they passed quickly and considerately and really took nothing from the trip. Also saw one mountain-biker and three backpackers - making for a pretty solitary 18 mile trip by west-sider standards! Definitely a hike well-worth taking. Were lots of opportunities for roaming ridges and to other lakes if one had several days to spend. If I did it again, would try to catch wildflowers in August or do mid-September. Was a bit on the cold side for a girl who does not do snow. MA [Online editor's note: This trip was originaly submitted under the nameAbernathy Pass #476, but from the description it sounds more like FoggyDew Creek #417.]