Downey Creek — Saturday, Apr. 2, 2016

North Cascades > Mountain Loop Highway

We (Shan Shan, Jake our 13 month old son, Liesl our dog, and our friend Kelli and her daughter) had a nice day at Downey Creek yesterday. The Suiattle River Road is in good shape. There are a few sections with deeper potholes that you have to be careful with, but overall it's smooth driving. The trailhead is open (apparently it was closed to remove some dangerous tree). We hiked about 3 miles to the first campground (and back, obviously). As Sir-Hikes-A-Lot reported in February, there are a few tricky blowdown sections, but I managed to pass them all with Jake in the backpack carrier (and excluding Jake we had two novice hikers among us), so for most hikers these obstacles should be passable. I wouldn't necessarily recommend considering this a family hike until it is cleared up though. One area (tricky area 2 in the photos) will require some significant reconstruction of the trail. Otherwise not much to report, but I thought people might enjoy seeing the little one in the outdoors and see some pics of the blowdown areas. We met one other couple on the trail, and we ran into a women with two dogs who climbed the Old Downey Creek trial (which I wasn't familiar with) to climb Downey. They had to return though due to deep snow and the dogs disappearing in deep holes. Sadly, we also were greeted by the first mosquitos of the year around the trailhead. The Flickr album has some more detailed photos of the tricky areas so that you can review if this is passable for you.

More Information on this Trip Report

• https://www.flickr.com/photos/bravenboer/albums/72157666661012896