I hiked the French Cabin Mountain trail (#1308) today to the South Peak, summiting North Peak on my way back. The weather was cool, with off-and-on sunshine and a chilly wind along the ridge line. There were no other vehicles at the trailhead and I saw no one on the trail.
I had some difficulty with the trailhead. After missing the turn off FR4308 -- it is marked for Knox Creek, which was not what I was looking for -- I eventually backtracked and found it, as well as the turn onto the unmarked Road 115. When I reached the concrete stream ford I parked, but subsequently determined I should have driven through. The flow was about an inch deep, posing no problem to any vehicle but deep enough to get my boots wet when I walked through it. An earlier post warned against driving through, which may be a problem earlier in the year, but not now.
Just past the stream crossing is the gate mentioned in the trail guide. Or rather, was -- the gate is detached and lying on the ground, although the gateposts are still standing. The road past the gate for the next third of a mile is suitable for all vehicles, and there is a parking area on the left just as the road makes its first switchback to the right. Sturdier, high-clearance vehicles could continue another mile to where the road is blocked by a pile of rocks and the trail proper begins, but the road is rough in places and there is no adequate turnaround or parking.
From that point the trail starts up very steeply, and continues steep for a while. It is also rutted by off-road vehicles. Although a previous posting offered the view that they were illegal here, there is a sign at the bottom crediting trail restoration to an ORV group, so I suspect they are in fact there legitimately. The ruts continue off and on up to the first point on the ridge, about half a mile and 1000 feet up after leaving the road, complicating what is in any case a difficult climb on loose dirt and rocks. I saw no evidence of vehicles on the rest of the trail.
Once gaining the ridge, the trail continues up, and occasionally down, for another 3 miles to South Peak, cutting under the east slope of North Peak. It is overgrown with huckleberry bushes in a number of places, but that never caused any navigation difficulty. Navigation did become difficult, however, between North and South Peaks, where the trail runs through open meadow with many apparent tracks leading in various directions. I lost it once where it did an abrupt switchback to the right to climb over the ridge -- there are a couple of cairns, but they are not always visible when you need them.
I found nothing resembling even a way-trail going up North Peak, but the summit is clearly visible from the trail and it was not difficult to navigate. Starting from a point on the trail south of the summit, it was about 1/4 of a mile and less than a 300 foot climb.
The overall elevation gain of 1750 feet described in the Guide is clearly in error -- net gain from trailhead to peak alone is over 2000 feet. I think a correction is in order. My GPS measured over 3600 feet in cumulative elevation gain, counting several climbs along the ridge line both coming and going. Total round-trip distance was just about 10 miles from my trailhead, and would be less if a higher trailhead were used. Although the air seemed clear, particularly with the wind, views beyond the immediate neighboring peaks were hazy from the wildfire smoke. The Stuart Range was barely visible, while Rainier was obscured by clouds.
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