Lost Creek Ridge, Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) Section K - Stevens Pass to Rainy Pass & North Fork Sauk River — Saturday, Jul. 20, 2024

TLDR

It goes!! But this route is not for the faint of heart, the Lost Creek Ridge trail is gorgeous but brutal, crossing the White Chuck River is a game of luck, and you’re far from help if anything goes awry. If you don’t have route finding experience and aren’t willing to bushwhack for ~1 mile, I’d suggest doing another hike.

!! There are also some fires raging in the Suiattle drainage that might complicate the Lost Creek Ridge, so be sure to check in with USFS before attempting this loop !!

Overview

3 of us were looking to do some sort of 30ish mile, 2 night loop along the mountain loop highway. While looking on the map we saw what looked like a winner, Lost Creek Ridge to the junction with the PCT near Kennedy Creek, then linking up with the N Fork Sauk. But hopes were abated when we read the trip report on WTA and some reports from NWhikers.net that the bridge over the White Chuck River had been swept away a little over 20 years ago and the trail hadn’t been maintained past Round Lake (~4 miles in) since. We read a report from August of last year who found a blowdown that spanned the river and was able to cross so we thought we’d try our luck and at least report our findings back to the community.

Itinerary

• Day 1: Lost Creek Ridge TH → Lake Byrne (10 mi, 5,500 ft gain)
• Day 2: Lake Byrne → Mackinaw Shelter (15 mi, 5,000 ft gain)
• Day 3: Mackinaw Shelter → North Fork Sauk TH (5.25 mi)

Day 1

We were able to meet a buddy for a car shuttle to go between the 2 trailheads at around 8 am and we hit the trail shortly afterwards. The grade up to Round Lake was way nicer than expected, it looked like a really gorgeous place to hang out and go for a swim on a sweltering day, but we resisted the urge knowing we had quite a few miles left to go to reach our destination, Lake Byrne. The trail after Round Lake is mostly exposed and easy to follow but spends most of the time either ascending or descending, not much flat trail 😣 There were still several streams that were running fairly swiftly so water wasn’t a huge issue, but I can’t imagine they’ll be running past mid August. We made it to Lake Byrne pretty gassed at around 6:30 pm. Camp Lake and Lake Byrne are both STUNNING. We saw tons of alpine trout swimming around in these lakes, should have brought our fishing poles!

Day 2

This is when the real adventure began. We started our descent into the White Chuck river valley with varying levels of optimism. The trail loses ~3k feet in 1.5 miles, zoinks!! We batted our way through the brush and clambered over/under/around >50 blowdowns (we lost count lol). The descent took us a solid 2.5 hours. After getting close enough to see the river the trail disappears (approximate coordinates: 48.11857, -121.19714), but now begins the fun game of finding a safe way across. We got endlessly lucky and found a copse of trees that had succumbed to the eroding river, creating a great bridge across the mighty White Chuck river! (approximate coordinates: 48.11982, -121.19648)

After some celebratory sour patch gummies we forged onward. We had to cross a fork of Kennedy creek to reconnect with the Lost Creek Ridge trail towards the PCT. Our GPS was obviously our best friend here, and after scrambling straight up ~120 ft we were able to link back up with the Lost Creek Ridge trail. After another 2 miles of rough, heavily eroded trail we reached the junction with the PCT! What a relief.

We CRUISED on the PCT, which seemed like a highway compared to Lost Creek Ridge, for a comparatively easy ~5 miles, passing through the stunning Glacier Peak meadows. There were a few campsites there and plenty of running water, but we were feeling good so we decided to push on and see if we could get down to the Sauk River. We continued another 4 miles to the junction with the N Fork Sauk river trail and another ~3 miles down to the first campsite near Mackinaw shelter.

We had been hiking for an astounding 13 hours and had only seen 3 people over the last 2 days, so pitching a tent at the relatively crowded Mackinaw campsite was kinda reassuring!

Day 3

After a lazy morning we breezed down the rest of the N fork Sauk, a gradual, winding 5ish miles among towering old growth cedar and douglas fir and the roar of the Sauk river.