North Fork Sauk River, Painted Mountain (Red Mountain) & Monte Cristo Ghost Town — Friday, Feb. 6, 2015

North Cascades > Mountain Loop Highway

Today I attempted to drive to the trailhead for the North Fork Sauk River/Red Mountain trail. On my way up the Mountain Loop (from Darrington), I noticed that the Sauk was running very high. I turned up FS 49 and made it within 1-2 miles of the trailhead. As I was driving, I crossed two different sections of road that were underwater. At the time, it was no problem to get my Highlander through the water. However, I knew it would be raining hard all day, and I wasn't sure what those crossings would look like on my way home, so I decided to turn around and try a different trail. After getting denied at the North Fork of the Sauk, I headed further up the Mtn Loop towards Barlow Pass, where I checked out the wagon road to Monte Cristo. The log that normally allows you to cross the South Fork of the Sauk (on your way to Monte Cristo) is partially submerged, and my guess is that it will be fully submerged by the end of today. Ultimately I ended up cobbling together ~8 miles by doing brief out-and-backs on the following trails: Barlow Pass, Old Government, Monte Cristo, Weeden Creek, and misc FS roads. It was dumping rain the entire time and the route wasn't exactly inspiring, but any day in the mountains is still better than a day not spent in the mountains. As I drove down the Mountain Loop towards Granite Falls, the South Fork of the Stillaguamish was also running very high. It will be interesting to see how the mountain roads fare with these weekend rains!