Copper Ridge Loop — Sunday, Jul. 23, 2017

First of all, I have to say this takes the cake for my favorite Washington hike so far. Our hike was not the full loop, rather just to Copper Mountain Lookout. 

The hike up to Hannegan pass was extremely easy and snow/mudfree. The foliage at the start of the trail collected a good amount of condensation and so got my pants completely soaked.

Once over the pass we headed towards the lookout, while doing the climb to the ridge we had to climb over two small downed trees. Nothing too bad, but worth mentioning. About halfway up we hit a couple small snow bridges, no big deal to cross since they were melted, I broke them up with my ice axe and hopped over. 

Once on the ridge, the snow really started, the snowdrifts were a couple feet to several feet in some places, however, it was melting quite fast. We had to use GPS to route find since we were the first ones besides the earlier poster and the park rangers to make it out there. The wild flowers were just starting to pop out and man did they put on a show for us.

Once we got up to the lookout we did not want to come back down, such a phenomenal view. It honestly feels like you are in the heart of north cascades national park. Glaciers all around, glimpses of Baker, Shuksan, Challenger, Redface, etc; and the Chilliwak river raging below. 

Once we finally convinced ourselves that we really needed to go, we headed back and followed our now melted boot path. Along the way we saw goats, a marmot, and some bear scat. It appears the bears are very active in the area this year as other hikers told us they saw a couple bears earlier.

All in all awesome day hike, lots of miles, first entry into the lookout register of the year and got to meet Carmella who was the awesome ranger up there that weekend.