This trip has quite a few reports so I will focus on places I liked that are not often mentioned.
First: The Chiwawa River Road is closed as of Saturday 7/19, and possibly before, due to fire operations for the POMAS fire. I know this because the road was open when I came in, but when I was coming out, the fire officers informed me that the road is closed and I had to wait several times for a pilot car to take me through the segment of the road being worked on. It seemed like they were forming a secondary fire line with heavy equipment.
Whenever this trip is open, I have these top tips:
1. Sheep Camp is absolutely beautiful out of this world place that is well worth the side trip to it. You can see it in one of my photos - I was in this meadow and basin overlooking Glacier Peak and other peaks all by myself, it was unreal. To get to it, you follow the trail from the top of Middle Ridge. However, at some point the trail simply ends, and the campsites are nowhere near in sight, making this a bit of "find the campsites" adventure which I did not appreciate at 7:30 PM. The campsites are behind the trees to the north east, and the only way I could tell was cause I found some flat ground, and thought hmmm OK I will pitch the tent here, and then I saw a fire pit nearby. This area is so wet that I think the grass here grows quickly and at the same time the camp gets very light use, so the grass grows over the places where folks pitch tent (at least where I did), which is cool!
2. I highly highly recommend to make the side trip towards High Pass from Buck Creek Pass. It has beautiful views of Glacier Peak and other peaks as you go along, and once you get closer to High Pass, Triad Lake and surrounding peaks take your breath away. You can't actually get to the High Pass itself because there are some steep snowfields, but that's fine, basically on this trail, it's fine to go as long as you are comfortable, because all the time you are going you are getting a massive payout in terms of views!
3. I highly recommend camping at Larch Knob, taking time to find the optimal campsite. I had a bomber one overlooking the Spider meadows, 10/10!
Safety notes:
- I took microspikes for going up towards Spider Gap and was personally super happy I had them. I hear stories of people doing it with tennis shoes, kids with tennis shoes, etc. IMO this is a microspikes type of situation, and I will personally never do this without them. The runoff is quite bad if you start sliding near the top.
- Chiwawa river crossing was pretty safe at 12PM with two trekking poles, following regular stream crossing safety practices. I was a bit worried about it because I've had some close calls in crossing glacial streams before, but honestly don't be worried, if you take two trekking poles, find the right route, you will be good.
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