West Fork Buttermilk — Tuesday, Jun. 24, 2025

We had quite the adventure day up to Fish Creek Pass! The road to the TH was just lovely, almost all paved. We were the only car there when we arrived just before 8am. There's a very nice bathroom stocked with TP (thank you!). The first 3 miles of trail was pretty overgrown with vegetation and beautiful wildflowers (western columbine, lupine, paintbrush, columbia lily, creeping dogwood, thimbleberry) and at times was hard to see the trail but sometime during our hike a trail party came in and knocked down most of that vegetation so it's all set now, thanks guys! At just before 3 miles you come to a very large slide area which is pretty impressive. After crossing that there is a HUGE blowdown section you have to find your way through. We took a different path up and back, I think staying higher is better? Who knows, it's a mess and takes some time and careful maneuvering. But, if you get past this obstacle you can make it through all the rest of the blowdowns but let me tell you - we counted on the way down and there are 97 of them not counting the mess of them after the slide. And we didn't count little step overs these are 97 full on whole body over or army crawl under trees. It was a full body workout! I think we did 50 burpess and 50 army crawls. There is water the whole way which was great for our dog. All water crossings are mostly easy. You are in the forest the entire way until the pass. There are some peek-a-boo views starting at like two miles from the pass. You go through a beautiful larch forest right before the pass. Star peak is absolutely stunning and the views at the pass are incredible, I wish it hadn't been so hazy but we will be back! I got a huge blister and had to finish the last mile to the pass in one flip fop because the bugs in the woods were TERRIBLE. I couldn't stop long enough there to manage my foot so flip flop summit it was. No bugs at the pass thankfully and we could have some snacks and fix up my foot for the descent. SUCH a beautiful terminus to a hike or start of a scramble, or you can head down to Star lake. Can't wait to go back again for Star lake and hopefully some peakbagging. We clocked 15.5 miles to the pass and 3800ft gain. Bring your bug spray! We saw 8 million mosquitos and ZERO people! Happy trails!