Copper Ridge Loop — Friday, Jul. 20, 2018

North Cascades > Mount Baker Area

We hiked in from the trailhead to copper lake and spent two nights there, and then hiked back out the way we came in. The trail to Hannegan pass was snow free. We stopped at hannegan camp looking for a toilet that was theoretically there, but we were unable to find it despite following the signs. There was some snow in the camp but other sites were snow free. The trail from the pass to copper lake was also snow free for the most part, I would guess 5-10% snow covered. There were a couple longer sections of snow cover on the northern side of the hill Silesia is on, and on the back side of the copper mountain lookout, but these were no longer than a couple hundred meters. We were glad to have hiking poles. We brought micospikes but these were not necessary and we did not use them. Our gators probably helped keep some snow out of our boots, but we were not post-holing and these were probably not necessary. At Silesia one camp was snow covered, the one with the better view was snow free. We talked to a couple who stayed there and said they had no issues melting snow for water. All of the sites at copper lake, as well as the lake and basin itself, were snow/ice free. Our first night there was fairly windy and cold and while there were lots of mosquitoes, they were tolerable. The second night was not windy and there were very large amounts of mosquitoes which were quite bothersome. We had to be completely covered including hats with bug nets and gloves to be able to spend time comfortably outside of the tent, which was ok as it was still chilly. On our hike back out along the ridge the bugs were also very bad, much worse than in the way in. Any place we paused we were set upon by large amounts of mosquitoes/flies/nats. The flies in particular made it difficult to have a peaceful lunch break at the pass on the way out. Walking down from the pass the flies were so bad that they were landing on us and biting us while we hiked at a brisk pace! We don’t usually wear bug spray while hiking, but would reconsider that if doing this hike again soon. We did not plan to do the loop but we heard from others that the trail was extremely difficult to follow in the valley after crossing the chilliwack. We ran into two groups that found the brush so dense that they were forced to abandon their plans and turn back and hike the 3000 ft back up to copper lake in the evening! We also ran into several groups that had managed to navigate that section however. All in all we had a great hike and the views from all along the ridge were truly spectacular. The up and down along the ridge does make the hike into copper lake feel much longer than the 11.2 miles it’s billed as. If we did the trip again we would probably try to stay at Silesia camp on the first night.