Phelps Creek, Spider Gap - Buck Creek Pass Loop, Lyman Lakes & Image Lake via Miners Ridge — Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2012

Central Cascades > Stevens Pass - West

This is our first overnight hike and I learned a lot from others - many thanks to posts on this site and the book "Backpacking Washington" by Craig Romano. My perspective is from somebody who has no knowledge about the trails covered previously. I have no GPS, nor very detailed trail map. We (two people) started from Phelps Creek Trail Head and did the typical counter-clock wise loop, ended at Trinity Trail Head. Four nights and five days. The weather was fantastic, so were the overall hiking experience - everything people have given their praises liberally is proven to be true. Overall the trip is a very satisfying. We camped at good camps at Junction beyond the Spider Meadow - this is the first time we had hard time at interpreting Romano's description. He writes:"Shortly after crossing Phelps Creek, come to good camps at a junction..." - well, about 100 feet after crossing, there are splitting two trails - there are no signs. We thought this is the junction the book is describing, so we went ahead and set up a tent at the nearby camp and stay the night there. The next day we got up and went to the "junction" and went to the left so we can go to the gap. It took us about an hour to figure out that this trail is not the one leading to the gap. As it turns out, the splitting point is not a "junction". Take the main trail (on the right) and climb steeply for about a quarter mile in the woods, you will come to the real junction where the trail to the right is well marked to the basin and left is marked to the gap. I hope that we were the only persons who are stupid enough to make the mistake - but this note is just in case. As it turns out, several kinds of splitting trails without any signs laid ahead of us - we finally concluded that the best way to understand what's "junction" is that a junction mentioned in the book has to be a splitting trails point where there are signs clearly marked each way. In the case where there is no signs existing - we have to guess the general direction, or ask other people if we happen to meet them on the trail at the time. The Spider Gap route finding became easy for us because we are lucky enough to meet fellow hikers who were much more confident then we were. As soon as we got to the scenic camp, go straight up to the right on the snow will finally reveal the gap - a really awesome view. Walking on the snow was very easy - only trekking poles are needed. Going down, Romano's book alerts well that we didn't take the trail curves to the right. The correct way going down is go straight down on the snow field towards the Upper Lyman Lakes. Bugs are as bad as others have pointed out - but route finding became easy for us. We stayed at the west of the Lower Lyman Lake overnight - very beautiful area and good camps. Cloudy Pass offers great views. The shortcut to Suiattle Pass is completely snow free and is doable. We stayed at next night at Miner's Ridge starting point, and day-hiked to the Image Lake and the lookout - saving us the round trip of carrying the weight of backpacking for about 9 miles. The view along the Miner's Ridge are the best I have ever seen in the Cascades. We stayed the last night at the Buck Creek Pass camp site - a very good camp and we really love it. We came down the last day all the way to the Trinity for about 5 hours, and made to the trail head a little past two O'clock. For those of you who have not been to the Phelps Creek trail head, please be aware that there is no toilet there. The road between Trinity and Phelps Creek trail head is indeed very bad. We barely survived in our minivan - saw four wheel drivers went by at full 20 mile an hour speed without problems - this amazed me.