Cathedral Pass Loop — Saturday, Jun. 29, 2024

Three beautiful days on Cathedral Pass Loop with my sister and one of our friends.

Day 1: Chewuch River / Cathedral Driveway Trailhead to Tungsten Mine, 12.05 miles, 2,578 ft ascent. The trail drops elevation from the trailhead down trail 510A until you intersect Chewuch Trail. Dry, and the trail is in good shape. The trail climbs through blooming lupins, columbines, and amanita mushrooms, with intermittent burnout areas in recovery. We surprised a coyote on this section and a couple grouse. The ascent increases once we took the junction onto Tungsten trail and began the loop counter clockwise. After a few hours, we made camp just before the junction with Boundary Trail outside the old Tungsten Mine with sweeping views of the surrounding peaks and valleys. It rained hard overnight, but we mostly stayed dry and warm.

Day 2: Tungsten Mine to Remmel Lake + Apex scramble, 10.11 miles , 2,100 ft ascent. This day was the visual highlight of the trip. First few miles go through the beautiful Boundary trail on a gentle grade through the trees. Once we made the climb up Apex Pass, the best views of the loop began. My companions took a long break on the pass while I took a social trail up the west edge of Apex. Steep, but not a technical climb. Cloud cover obscured some of the views, but on a clear day it would have been amazing. After returning to the pass, we continued on past Amphitheater Mountain and Cathedral Peak. These are such unique formations, it took us a long time to make the pass due to how much time we spent taking photos. The pass was windy, but majestic and austere. The valley past the pass was equally stunning, and we took an hour to make a hot lunch next to a small pond just before Upper Cathedral Lake. There are a few patches of soft snow in this leg but they are easily traversed. From here the trail drops until the junction with Lesamiz Trail, which we took towards  Remmel Lake. The trail is rougher here, more loose rock and tread issues. We found a great spot to make our camp for the night by the lake, with big views of Remmel Mountain. A cow elk stopped by our camp just before bed.

Day 3: Remmel Lake to Cathedral Driveway / Chewuch River Trailhead, 15.7 miles, 1,400 ft ascent. Loooong day dropping elevation along the Chewuch River Trail. This area was somewhat less scenic than the previous days, and some sections of Chewuch are muddy and wet. Bugs were out and biting pretty bad too. It took us most of the day to get back to the junction with Cathedral Driveway Trail 510A, which turns uphill and climbs 1,200 ft or so before returning to the trailhead.

Overall another excellent adventure into the lonely and majestic Pasayten Wilderness. It’s a lot of effort to get up to the most rewarding leg of the loop between Apex and Remmel, but well worth it in our opinion. Next time we will probably make it a 4-day itinerary to reduce the mileage on the first and last days.