Navaho Pass — Saturday, Jun. 11, 2011

Snoqualmie Region > Salmon La Sac/Teanaway

What a sweet hike! It'll probably be even sweeter after the snow has melted, but I happen to like snow. My friends Andrea and Ben picked this hike for the three of us to do. We car-camped on Friday night (there are always tons of available spots along the dusty roads up there), and then started from the Stafford Creek trailhead on Saturday morning. The weather was luxurious: clear skies & lots of sun, and the air was warm but not super hot. It felt ridiculous strapping snowshoes to my pack in that weather, but I was glad later. For the first 3 miles the trail is in great shape and has been nicely rerouted where Stafford Creek had washed away the bank. It was a straightforward, dry forest walk with plenty of wildflower treats: multiple fairy slippers were sighted amongst the more common arnica, waterleaf, trillium, and hints of wilted glacier lilies. The thick ice of an avalanche runout marked the beginning of the crusty snow patches that obscured the trail. The patches were too brief to warrant donning the snowshoes yet, and the wildflower scenery changed to blankets of glacier lilies and spring-beauties, with a few yellow fritillary as well. We were continuously loosing and then stumbling upon the trail again, but we kept moving on the general heading of the Stafford/Standup Creeks trail intersection and found it in good time. At this point, we were 4 miles in and sitting at 5000' elevation near the Stafford Creek crossing. We abandoned our musings of making this a loop hike since the creek was a gushing rapid of snowmelt with little option for crossing, and the climb to the pass by Earl Peak looked long and daunting with its continuous snow cover. Instead we started switchbacking up the trail towards Navaho Pass where the snowpack was increasing as well. The trail has become a mini-river in places thanks to the melt, so well-waterproofed boots were essential. The climb got steep and the snow uninterrupted enough to justify wearing snowshoes. A mile passed slowly and we decided we were done for the day at 5600' elevation. We found a big open clearing where the 4-feet of snow was flat enough to set up our tents on, surrounded by swampy melt runoff. Nearby tree-wells were melted out and dry enough for the three of us to all sit and cook a very enjoyable dinner. A horizontal poll was lashed high between two trees nearby, which made a convenient bear-bag hanger for us. I'm guessing somewhere under all this snow there's an established campsite in this clearing. Temperatures dipped to 10 or 15 fahrenheit overnight, but it was nothing we weren't prepared for. The surrounding mountains looked gorgeous by moonlight. The morning came with some serious heat: 65 degrees out when I woke up, but my tent was in direct sunlight and had turned into a miserable greenhouse. After breakfast and some amazing coffee, we let our camp sit while we snowshoed the last half mile to the pass free of our packs. Sunglasses were essential, and I should have used more sunscreen. After rolling along through snowy clearings under a totally bluebird sky, an orange sign on a dead tree was spottable at a distance and led us up to the saddle where the view was breathtaking. In an instant the entire Stuart range became visible to us for the first time this hike. At 6000', it was a place to linger and take lots of pictures, which we certainly did.