Got a bit of a late start to my day. Arrived at the trail head at about 12 on a Monday and was surprised to find the lot totally full. Turned out a good handful of the cars were forest service workers doing trail maintenance (thanks guys!). Either way, I would say there's plenty of room to park up there on any day. There is also a well maintained pit outhouse and bear bin at the trail head too.
The road up was in rough condition. A previous trip report noted that there were pot holes that were especially difficult to see as you approach them. I could definitely agree and was grateful for that warning. I felt fine in my Subaru forester but the pot holes were many and deep and I wouldn't have been happy if I didn't have high clearance or 4wd. I didn't see any sedans at the top, if you really wanted to do it, give yourself well over an hour on the road to get up there.
My plan was to do Boundary Way and then go back and do Excelsior, if you're going to do both I would recommend this order as Boundary way is lower in view points.
Hike starts through forests and then brings you through boggy areas but they were not too muddy in these dry times. Just a couple of steps were sloggy but otherwise nothing to worry about. I was in trail runners and was happy about that decision. You also get to pass a big landslide section with some impressive downed trees before you start to reach the wildflowers.
Wildflowers were certainly a highlight at about 1.5 miles in or so. There were several stretches of fields full of flowers with views of Shuksan and Baker. This is where the bugs start to pick up a bit, though they were just annoying not totally unbearable (as the ~8 year old eating lunch on the rock noted) and weren't biting too bad. They did continue to be enough of a nuisance that when I stopped at the later views to snack I didn't sit around for too long.
I continued on and reached the crest year Cowap Peak which brings you to the other side of the ridge with views towards Canada and the majestic Mount McGuire. I would guess this was around the 2 mile mark or a little bit past it. This is likely a good turn around point. There was also a trail that I did not follow to the left (west) as noted in the trail description that would be a good exploration.
I was following my Gaia GPS map which indicated the trail continued to the right so I followed this for another .6 miles or so. The trail rapidly became less and less maintained and while still somewhat visible and there were some cairns at the earlier sections, I turned around at 2.6 miles after seeing considerable amounts of large, fresh scat and many scratches on my legs.
I had Excelsior to get to exploring after all.
This hike was well worth the exploration and I only saw one other group. Certainly less traveled than Excelsior so if you're looking for some quiet this would be the place to go.
Comments