McAlester Trail, Bridge Creek - McAlester Pass to Stehekin — Friday, Aug. 3, 2018

My girlfriend and I were lucky enough to be able to through-hike from Highway 20 to Stehekin and picked Maple/Rainy Pass via McAlester Pass as our route. We got to the NCNP Ranger Station around 7am and it was already slammed, but we ended up getting a backcountry permit for McAlester Lake.

We arrived at the Maple/Rainy Pass lot around 9:30am, got ready and hit the trail by 10am (it would have saved us a mile to park at Bridge Creek, but it made it a lot easier for our car transporters to find the car here). Now, from Rainy Pass, there is a trail to Rainy Lake - on most of the maps I had looked at it wasn’t clear (to me anyway) that that trail didn’t link up with the PCT or go through to Bridge Creek. Thus, we ended up walking the mile (each way) to Rainy Lake and back to the lot to join the PCT. Well, after 40 minutes of stretching the legs out on that nice flat paved trail... we got on the PCT and booked it towards Bridge Creek. The detour was actually a nice warm up, but I felt like an idiot for making that mistake!

It goes without saying that the PCT is in pretty good shape the whole way. We meandered through the first 3 miles of the trail passing through old growth Douglas Fir and Western Hemlock, through drainage areas and multiple creek crossings. All creek crossings were easy and some via bridges or log crossings.  6 miles later we arrived at Fireweed Camp, at which point we had ascended only 150’, but had descended 1250’, and stopped to have lunch for the day (this was a really nice campground by the way). After lunch we started the majority of the uphill on our trip, climbing 1800’ over 4.5 miles. Most of the climb was gradual, but the 18 switchbacks at the end really made us earn our dinner that night! 

The camp at McAlester was very nice - it had a segregated cooking area that had a small fire pit and two campsites (also one for stock). The line to hang your food was, unfortunately, broken. However, we had our own bear canister so food storage wasn’t an issue. The camp is nice and tucked away from the lake, which was gorgeous and not very large. Bugs this night we’re an annoyance to say the least! We had DEET and head nets yet they still managed to find a way to get to our skin! We got to bed by about 8pm and slept hard, it was very silent all night too - we were the only ones camped here that night.

In the morning, we woke up and it was a crisp 50°. Smoke from the nearby Gilbert Fire had crept over the ridge and filled the air.  We had a really quick breakfast (the bugs were back out!), refilled waters and got on the trail before 9am. It didn’t take long to reach the Pass, only 500’ over 0.9 miles (total elevation of 6000’) - we quickly rose up into the Smokey air. Upon reaching the pass, lush meadows and streams were abundant, we placed towels and shirts over our mouths and noses to help filter the air some. It was very Smokey - if I had to guess, I’d say visibility was no more than 1 mile. We didn’t waste any time, and since there were also no views, we headed down the many many switchbacks into the Rainbow Creek valley. As we lowered in elevation, the air became clearer. We had a small creek ford over Rainbow Creek where we ran into a nice couple who was heading up to the pass. 15 minutes later we reached Bowan Camp where we refueled and shed a few layers as the temperature was already up to 75°.  Heading further down the trail to Bench creek, we eventually came to a cable bridge crossing that was in itself a feat of modern day mountain engineering! I should mention that, by now, we had descended 2730’ from McAlester Pass (5.6 miles), so our quads, knees, and toes were already starting to ache. Only 20-30 minutes after crossing the bridge we entered the 2010 Rainbow Bridge burn area, which was barren with the remnants of burned timber. The temperatures fluctuated between 85-90° in this area and there was very little shade. Pushing through our muscular and joint discomfort, we came to a lookout over Lake Chelan and Stehekin - it was gorgeous! With the end in sight (so to speak), we continued on down the trail until, 11.4 miles later, we reached the Stehekin Valley Rd.

First stop, the bakery!! All I will tell you is that you must go here! We then walked to Stehekin Village, completing our trip at 14 miles, and met our car transporters for a well deserved beer. There were a number of PCT’ers there and people enjoying the scene. It was one of the best places that I have concluded a hike at. I highly recommend this through hike if you can swing it - all in all, the ascent was easy totaling at 2825', but the total length of 24.75 miles (with our detour to Rainy Lake) and majority of it being descent (of 6381'), made this one a joint acher.