Painted Mountain (Red Mountain), North Fork Sauk River & North Fork Sauk Falls — Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2014

North Cascades > Mountain Loop Highway

Clearly we should have read the trip reports more carefully, and the WTA description for Red Mountain needs a good overhaul, but as is, we were pretty confused to have the trail dead-end into a band of rock cliffs with nothing like the lookout views we'd been hoping for. So. Doing a bit more research after getting home, here's the deal: the 1 mile, 700' elevation hike described here is to a spot most of us would call a view point -- it's just a little spur off the trail overlooking the Sauk River Valley and giving a glimpse of the tops of Sloan and Bedal peaks. If there was a fire lookout here, it's hard to imagine why, but just a heads-up that the WTA gets it right when they say it's not the kind of lookout you probably had in mind. And this is definitely not the top of 6975 foot Red Mountain (we clearly did not do the math either...) with the views you might see in the summit photos. The main photo on the WTA description page is misleading, as that is for the actual peak climb, not the 1 mile view point. The trail continues up above the view point, and after a few switch-backs, it forks into what look like equally well used paths, but almost immediately, both dead-end into moss-covered, steep rock. The descriptions we read later call this a class 2-3 rock climb, but to hikers with a couple of dogs and no rock climbing gear, this was a dead-end. We went back down scratching our heads and looking for a turn-off we might have missed, but no, that really was the trail. (If anyone knows of an alternate path around the rocks, please speak up! Did we miss something??) Here's what seems like more accurate info on the Red Mountain / Painted Mountain trail, but the gist is that to get to the actual summit (with its red rocks and monster views) is in the ballpark of an 8 mile round trip with almost 4900' of elevation gain and a reasonably serious rock climb in the mix: http://www.summitpost.org/painted-mountain-red-mountain/534726 Still a nice day in the woods (though mighty breezy and chilly in the midst of the visiting "Arctic Vortex"), and a view of the mighty Sloan is nuthin to sneeze at. Just not what we were expecting. The trail to the view spot is in great shape, and a huge thanks to the folks who no doubt put in a pile of work to cut those great steps into a few giant trees across the trail. The steps made them easy to get over. A visit to the raging, frosty North Fork Sauk Falls was well worth the side-trip. After considering the pros and cons, we decided against a swim.

More Information on this Trip Report

• http://www.summitpost.org/painted-mountain-red-mountain/534726