North Fork Sauk River — Saturday, Aug. 29, 2020

This is the 4th river/forest walk of the month. In trying to escape overrun trails, we have had success with the No Lakes, No Summits rule and stuck to dayhiking backpacking routes. When we got to the TH we were dismayed to see it full, with cars parked a half mile down the road, but we had the trail mostly to ourselves, a couple of trailrunners and some backpackers is it.  This trail is really a worthy day hike in itself. There is only one mtn view, coming early in the first mile, of Sloan Peak, and another one looking up at Red mtn from an avalanche shoot. The rest is all huge old growth cedars, the NF Sauk, creeks and bridges. Keep this one in mind for a cloudy or rainy day, I've done this a couple of times in the rain. The climb is gradual up on nice cushy trail, not many rocks or root ladders to deal with. There are a couple of good lunch spots, one 2 miles in where the Pilot Ridge trail takes off, go toward the river. We did not stop here this time, but I have in the past. Another 3 miles in is the bridge over Red Creek with a nice campground and a backcountry loo. This would also make an excellent place to stop. However we continued another mile or so to see if we could find the old shelter, now a jumble of rotting logs and moss, or maybe some views. No views and I'm not sure if I found the shelter spot or not, someone was camped there and I didn't want to invade their privacy by poking around. According to my fancy watch, this was about 6 miles in.  I wouldn't recommend going this far, but having lunch at the Red Creek bridge and more scenic campground. Another option here, if you're car camping nearby, is to hike up to the old Red mtn lookout site, I was up there about 5 or 6 yrs ago and it was a brushy blowdown mess then, but only a mile to a view of Sloan. There is a climb that continues on called the Painted Traverse for those with the skills, we met some climbers that had done it on their way down.