We were camping at Troublesome Creek (a really lovely hidden gem of a spot, by the way!) and wanted to hike somewhere nearby and uncrowded without a lot of elevation gain. So we hiked up the first three miles of the North Fork Skykomish trail, turning around at the intersection with Pass Creek Trail. The first mile isn't as nice as the rest, as it's an old road. At about 1.3 miles it becomes a well-maintained trail through serene old growth forest. Lots of mushrooms coming out, berries are gone. We passed by a few trickles of water, nothing big enough to dip into though, and passed no one our entire time there on a Sunday. It's a great spot for some forest bathing, no big views or lakes unless you're going father up to Dish Pan Gap. After returning to the parking lot we took the first 100 yards or so of the West Cady Ridge Trail to a bridge spanning a deep gorge in the river. It was well worth the extra excursion!

Got to the parking lot around 5:30pm on Friday. Hit the North Fork Skykomish Trail, at 6mi in there is a large camp, I called it a night there. The next site is 2.5mi 1400'+ further, wish I had known might have made the push. Got up at 6:30am, rallied up to Dishpan Gap, to the Bald Eagle trail that first view of Glacier Peak is sublime and stopped me in my tracks. Veered to the north to take the High Route to Blue Lake, biggest marmot I have ever seen up there. Highly recommend the high route, but do it early or late, it would be hot midday, it was a 5mi water carry from Camp to Lake.

Dropped to Blue for lunch, enjoyed watching some anglers hooking up on rainbows so I didn't have to. Played a quick game of sudoku while snacking and taking in the views. Bugged out around 11am, the climb back up Pilot Ridge trail was was hot, exposed, and after the high route I was feeling it. In hindsight I should have topped off at Sloan creek, last water source for 4mi and that climb had me sweating.

Back up on Bald Eagle I ran into a hiker who asked for assistance. He got turned around looking for North Fork Sauk, got him pointed in the right direction. Then just ran the ridge through giant meadows for the rest of the day, 4 or 5 good camp sites up there, descended to Curry Gap and onto the Quartz Creek trail. About a third of the way down that is an awesome waterfall and pool. I was back at the car at 5:30pm. Clocked 24.4 mi, 24hr, 5161'+/-, peaked at 6319', Govee hit 92° in the bag moving, it was a scorcher. No bugs, no dew, only got down to 58° at night. The smoke got worse as the day went on. The trail is in great shape, lots of recent work done, much appreciated! 

Two night backpack with our kids, age 12 and 9. It was the 9 year old's 1st time carrying her own overnight pack and she proudly crushed it. Trails in great condition throughout.

1st day started with 3 miles up the NF Skykomish trail to the Pass Creek junction. The first part on the old road bed was the buggiest section of the trip. Hung a right onto the Pass Creek trail. River crossing no big deal. I actually rock-hopped it successfully in waterproof boots.  Mom and kids crossed in crocs. Pass Creek trail was new to me -- so nice! Even on a hot afternoon, it was shady and cool on this trail.

1st night we camped next to Pass Creek along the PCT. Toilet in great shape. However, the next morning, 9 year old took a shortcut through some bushes from the main trail along the creek up to the campsite and disturbed a yellowjacket nest and got stung several times. So watch out for that. This made our 2nd day rough for her, although it was short. We hiked south on the PCT to the West Cady trail, turned right, and hiked up to where the trail starts to cross from the SE to the south side of Benchmark at about 5550. This was the crux of the trip -- would there be flowing water on the east side of Benchmark? Answer: yes! And it was visible and fairly easy to access from the main trail. We left the trail there and continued off trail to camp in a dried tarn bed in the pretty plateau on the east flank of Benchmark. There were also a couple full tarns still there, although I prefer to pump my drinking water from flowing streams.

We got there around midday Sunday so had the afternoon to relax and poke around. It was very hot and sunny where we were but we saw some weird clouds with streaks coming out of them moving around to the east. Then, multiple wisps of smoke began to appear on the steep west slopes of Longfellow. We cooked dinner at the summit of Benchmark and saw a couple entire trees go up in flames (from a great distance, but we saw the bright orange vertical light). Not sure if this fire has been reported anywhere. I think the nearby trails are still closed from last year's fire near there anyway?

Monday we hiked out the West Cady trail. The kids had a blast 100 percent of the time on this part.

So many ripe delicious huckleberries throughout the entire West Cady Ridge trail (until it descends into forest).

Did the Bald Eagle Loop and added on a side hike up to Johnson Mountain on the first day of a fastpacking overnighter. Started on the Skykomish trail going counterclockwise for the loop. A little under 30 miles all together. Trail crews have cleaned up all of the Quartz Creek Trail at this point. The rest of the trails are not overgrown, but have some plants starting to get pretty close where I was wet knee down from rubbing on foliage in the morning hours. Minus the normal gaps on the Bald Eagle Trail water was abundant from earlier rains. I camped at Upper Blue Lake. I would say I was able to run almost 70 percent of it so it is in great condition heading into the Labor Day weekend.

Been wanting to visit Lake Sally Ann for a long time and finally did it as an overnight from the North Fork Skykomish River trailhead. Now is a good time to visit if you prefer quiet/solitude, as there is a fire closure on the Pacific Crest Trail north of Dishpan Gap (at Mica Lake), as well as a few trail closures just east of the PCT (Little Wenatchee, Cady Ridge, etc), due to the Shoofly Fire, making Sally Ann rather inaccessible from the east.

Both the NF Skykomish trail and Pass Creek trail are relatively untraveled, and we didn't see another person on our way up on either. The Skykomish River crossing was straightforward with a few options, either rock-hopping, log-scooting, or wading in mid-calf deep water. We saw an American Goshawk near the river crossing.

At the camp where Pass Creek adjoins the PCT, there were a lot of obnoxious biting flies but we managed to have a nice lunch regardless, and met a fellow who would be the only PCT thru-hiker we encountered the entire trip, heading south after hiking the section until the northern fire closure.

The switchbacks up to the ridge from Cady Pass were very hot but mostly shaded in the forest until it opens up into a mixture of smaller trees and beautiful meadows with views. Here is where we ran into legendary guidebook author Craig Romano who was trail-running a large loop in the area with a pal! (They were the only folks we met on this section of trail).

We arrived at Sally Ann around 4pm and found one group already there, who were friendly and fairly quiet neighbors for our afternoon/night at the lake. We took a dip in the lake—COLD, but not the coldest alpine lake I've swam in! Pikas scurried around the talus slope behind the lake while we swam. I really enjoyed our campsite which had partial views of both the lake as well as ridges/mountains to the northeast. There was a little bit of haze/smoke visible in the distance toward the Shoofly Fire but nothing too dramatic. The skeeters were out—it didn't seem like there were a ton of them but somehow I ended up with bites all over my legs anyway!

In the morning we sipped our coffee while admiring the mountain view and the local birds. I spied a pair of Pine Grosbeaks preening in a subalpine fir just below camp.

Around 9am we set out northward, taking our time and enjoying the views and encountering no one at all—pretty shocking for the PCT! There are a couple of small springs to refill water here and there, though no water at Dishpan Gap. Here we veered left on North Fork Skykomish River trail, which gently descends for a bit, and eventually you start to see water trickling and then flowing downstream. The trail was in great shape and clearly had some recent work done on it. I really enjoyed the flat section with a million blueberry bushes with ripe berries. The first other people we saw all day were two other backpackers coming down from Blue Lake, who caught up with us while we were taking a lunch break at the camp by the second NF Skykomish River crossing (about 5 miles from the trailhead). The rest of the trail down was hot and fairly uneventful, passing through a beautiful forest with many small stream crossings (and lots of frogs!)

Happy hiking!