Loowit Trail — Monday, Jul. 21, 2025

Two of us did the full Loowit Trail as a day hike starting from June Lake trailhead, going clockwise. I don't have anything to add to the info in previous trip reports, except I want to note trail issues in the area of the Muddy River and propose a possible off-trail alternative. Granted we were near the end of a long, exhausting day, but we found the many gully crossings (7-9) of the Muddy River to be particularly frustrating and even somewhat dangerous due to loose surfaces, with one downslope to the bottom of the gully requiring butt-scooting or climbing down rocks. There is a lot of redundant climbing that is made more difficult the heavier your pack. It may be easier to avoid these gully crossings completely by crossing the Muddy River in two places by going off-trail downstream when you first emerge from the trees when traveling clockwise and can see the whole erosional landscape carved out by the Muddy (original report incorrectly identified one of the waterways as coming off the Shoestring Glacier but that crossing is later and not covered in this trip report). Not far below the trail, the river gradient lessens noticeably and instead of being gullied is two wide braided channels that carry very little water at the height of the summer hiking season. There is very little vegetation in this area to obstruct off-trail travel and the gradient is low. You would cross the two wide channels then ascend the moraine on the other side until you intersect the Loowit Trail. Sorry, I don't have any photographs of the area, but the trail is clearly visible in satellite/aerial images. We considered this off-trail route when we first saw the landscape but opted to stay on the trail, so take my suggestion with a large grain of salt.