Downey Creek — Thursday, Apr. 7, 2016

North Cascades > Mountain Loop Highway

Because of the warm weather today I wanted to venture into the mountains and picked Downey Creek off of the Suiattle River Road. Started out at 8:00am and had the trail to myself all day. This trail has taken a beating with winter storms, on the first part of the trail I ran into three washouts with logs, mud, and debris across the trail. I was able to navigate these with no problem, but this will need some work. There were also some blowdowns that required some scrambling over and under. Some of the streams were a little tricky to cross as well and were worse on the way back with the warmer weather. Even with these issues the majority of the trail was in good shape and easy to follow, the main issues being well before the first camp and not running into more obstacles until towards the end of my turn around point. After the first camp I wanted to hike to the Bachelor Creek trail. I think I was close but started to run into patchy snow and then more debris and blowdowns across the trail along with some damaged foot bridges. I turned around where there was a tangled mess of snow, blowdowns, and debris. This was still a great hike, you could feel the primitive and pristine nature of Glacier Peak Wilderness. I was back at the car at 1:30pm, a great day to be out.

More Information on this Trip Report

• https://flic.kr/s/aHskxbDb7f