Glacier Peak Circumnavigation, Indian Creek, White River, Buck Creek Pass, High Pass, Boulder Pass & Napeequa River — Monday, Aug. 25, 2025

We did Glacier Peak circumnavigation as a 9-day hike with a few long days and a few shorter days Aug. 25-Sept. 2.

First, a debt of gratitude: Anyone who hiked this trail in July must have endured a whole lot of suffering. Respect and thanks to the early-season hikers who beat paths around 7ft tall logs (lying down) and through thick brush that obscured the trail and created trip hazards on sketchy cliffsides, and to the tireless trail crews who helped make Indian Creek passable. There were just a few sections, outlined below, that gave us pause.

Second, a gripe: the PCT is such an awesome trail. But with so many people burning the miles, there is A LOT of surface pooping going on. Be careful where you step in any of the campsites, or what rock you turn over. I get it: folks are pushing 30mi days and are probably too tired to poop at all, much less bury it. But we encountered a young man who’d traveled to WA for Section K, and fallen violently ill with norovirus or Giardia. He hadn't kept anything in or down in 2 days and was trying to bail off on the Suiattle River Trail. (We offered to walk him to Sulphur Creek CG, at a social distance, carrying his stuff, but he managed to keep water down overnight, said he could do it on his own and had SOS on his iphone, just in case.) Additionally, horse people use campsites below Boulder Pass, and you have to walk around A LOT of horse pee and poo. We weren’t sure our water filters would protect us. (That was our last night, so we’ll wait a couple days and hope for the best.) Please, people. Do better by your fellow hikers and this beautiful part of our state!!!

Otherwise, this trip was amazing!!! We’d been wanting to do it for years, and seemed to run into wildfire closures every August. So, this was the year!

Day 1 – White River TH to White Pass via Indian Creek. Thanks to trail crews who brushed the trail for the first several miles. If the last 4-5mi were any indication of how bad it had been, your work saved us tons of energy. Those miles were hard, but we never lost the trail, just a lot of pushing through. Once on the PCT, the miles to White Pass went quickly and we enjoyed a beautiful sunset in camp. (About 15mi and 3800ft)

Day 2 – White Pass to Glacier Creek. The hike to Red Pass was gorgeous, and we got to scramble Portal Peak (left side of Red Pass heading north). It was fun, ledgy and had great views. After that, we continued down to Glacier Meadows, a lush camping area, and then kept going down to the Whitechuck River, which is milk-white – I’d never seen anything like it – then farther, across the broken but sturdy bridge at Baekos Creek. There are some pretty riverside campsites at Baekos, but we pressed onward past Sitkum, which had a log and a rock hop and some sandy campsites on the other side. Then we crossed Kennedy Creek, which was harrowing. My partner is a field & stream guy, and we had some good beta from a young woman hiking the opposite direction, so we made it across and had a bath – thigh-high on 6’2” Nate and stomach-high on 5’3” me. We got a lot of gravel in our shoes while crossing. I recommend Crocs or something similar. My Xero sandals would not have offered enough stability, so I wore my trail runners and the cleanup was really something!. After that, we switchbacked up Kennedy Ridge and camped at Glacier Creek, a nothing camp spot, but next to water. (About 16mi/4000ft)

Day 3 – Glacier Creek to Mica Lake. This was one of the prettiest days on the trail, though thunder and lightning were forecast for the afternoon.We could see the big glaciers on Glacier Peak up close for a while. Fire Creek Pass is stupendous and has some great, but dry, camp spots. We continued down to the lake, where there are a few excellent campsites. We got in at 1pm, and the rain started at 2. But we still got to swim and explore after it passed. It also rained at night. (About 6mi/2600ft)

Day 4 – Mica Lake to Milk Creek. I think this was about 11mi, not sure of elevation gain and loss, but it was hard travel in drizzle with wet veg soaking our shoes and rain gear. About 1/2mi and a few hundred feet below Mica Lake is some good camping with a toilet. Continuing down are switchbacks and lots of blowdown to a brushy section on Milk Creek. Before and after the bridge, there’s brush and slippery, rocky trail with steep drop-offs until the switchback trail that goes up about 2000ft. The switchbacks are in decent shape and lead up to the area before Vista Ridge, where there are a couple good but dry campsites. Nate reached Milk Creek’s east fork before I did and was enchanted. I found him blissed out in a campsite, so we made it a shorter day and enjoyed the afternoon, including a bit of rain.

Day 5 – East Fork Milk Creek to PCT. A few hundred feet up from our camp was the turnoff to Grassy Point and iconic view of Glacier Peak. You can camp there, but it’s dry. A few hundred feet down is Dolly Creek, with some nothing campsites, but near water. We kept going down, down, down, and through the worst of the blowdown (think jungle gyms) to the Suiattle River through some wonderful old and second growth forest. We had planned for an 18mi day but stopped after 13 to camp on Miner’s Creek next to a big new bridge, after a significant blowdown that required gymnastics. This used to be the Suiattle River crossing before the old bridge blew out, and it was once a great campground, but tree fall decimated all but 2 campsites. We took one, in which a PCTer had left a sacred heart made of sticks (trail magic). The young man with stomach issues came later and took the other site.

Day 6 – PCT to Buck Creek trail, up to Buck Creek Pass. After ascertaining that our camp mate could hike on his own, we parted ways, he for Sulphur Creek (and hopefully urgent care and a hotel room), and Nate and I for Buck Creek Pass. A couple big blowdowns on the PCT and the Buck Creek trail, but with workarounds. Buck Creek Pass was empty because the TH is closed for the Pomas fire; we skirted the edge of the closure map and found an amazing campsite with a view of Glacier Peak. (Around 9.5mi and 4300ft up.)

Day 7 – A short day up to High Pass, then down to a turquoise tarn on the other side. (4.5mi, 2000ft.) The first boulder field before High Pass required route finding. Like the trip reporter from Aug. 17, we took the lower route and turned up to the left of a big boulder. The route across the second boulder field was obvious. The tarn was one of our favorite sites, though it was full of algae, so we didn’t swim, and we found water sources above it. We took turns napping, reading and rock scrambling the rest of the day.

Day 8 – High Pass tarn to Boulder Creek camp at 5200ft. This was another hard travel day! We’d heard about the slippery, steep, brushy slope down to the Napeequa, and we both landed on our butts twice, but it was nothing compared to the overgrown, hard-to-navigate, rocky, rooty 3.5mi on the Napeequa, across the river (again, thigh-high on Nate and stomach-high on me around 1pm) and up 1500ft toward Boulder Pass. Gazing on the Napeequa valley from above is magical, but I’ll be OK if I never visit that valley again. Once the trail busted out into the meadows below Boulder Pass (at 5700ft), my whole mood lightened. The switchbacks to Boulder Pass at 6300ft and down the other side were impressive. We thought we’d find water and camping 200ft below/beyond Boulder Pass, but we only saw one small, sloped campsite near a trickle of water, so we continued down to 5200 and the horse camp. Despite the manure, it was one of the prettiest campsites we stayed in. (12-ish miles, 2200ft?)

Day 9 – We got an early start and watched the sunrise hit Clark Mountain - magnificent! 9.2mi down the impressive switchbacks and out the White River trail to our car without incident. We celebrated with warm TH near-beer, hemp milk lattes at the Sasquatch hut near Goldbar and delicious Southern Indian food in Monroe, the first real food we’d had, unless you count the cups and cups of berries we ate on the trail (blueberries, red and purple huckleberries, salmonberries, salal and the last of the thimbleberries).

I'm beyond thrilled that we finally got this one done, and I highly recommend it to hardy hikers with backpacking, scrambling and fording experience and good cheer in tough conditions.