Three Fingers — Thursday, Sep. 6, 2018

North Cascades > Mountain Loop Highway

After returning home from Hawaii on a redeye flight at 9am a friend asked if I wanted to do Three Fingers. So of course I said yes...... I figured on a weekday we would have a good chance of catching the lookout to ourselves, although I was worried about our departure time. Which would prove to be too late to make it to the Lookout that night. After a much-needed one and a half hour nap I prepped the bikes, bike rack and gear and left Seattle around noon. Got to the “trail head“ starting on our bikes at 2 PM. I would say the uphill portion on the bikes with an overnight pack is potentially the hardest part of the trip. It was exhausting going up and we even ended up walking the bike in the steepest portions, I’m guessing nearly 2 miles of walking the bikes. It took us nearly 2 hours! Do not underestimate biking the uphill portion of the forest road. Especially if you have a heavy pack. Which we had to bring in the event we didn’t make it to or have space in the lookout. Pay attention as the original trailhead is easy to miss off the side of the forest road. We stashed the bikes in the woods and headed up the overgrown brushy trail. It goes up then back down then up again an irritating number of times through brush and over and under some logs. Until you get to Saddle Lake. Not so spectacular but nice and quiet. We filled up some water there. There are a couple streams to fill up just before goat flats but then the water sources are pretty scarce until just after tin can gap. From there the trail evens out a bit and you get out of the brushy nonsense. There are some beautiful little tarns and an Alpine area filled with blueberries. A Bears paradise. We did not see any bears on the trip but we talked to someone who did that day. It took us about 4 hours to get to Tin Can Gap from the hiking trail head. Landing us there right at sunset, 745ish. We figured it wasn’t the prudent decision to continue on in the dark to the Lookout even though we knew it was empty and we would have had it to ourselves. Damn! The 1.5 hour nap in the morning screwed me! It was a tough choice but probably the right decision. We set up shop at a pretty kick ass consolation spot at the gap, overlooking the glacier. We made some dinner and drank some whiskey then woke up at 630am headed up to the Lookout. There is a small portion of snow right after the gap you have to cross unless you go up the moat. Either way works but we felt safe to cross the snow as it was only about 10 feet long. there is a obvious Trail the rest of the way. All the traversing on sloped areas up to the final snowfield was free of snow. But I can see how it would be rather dangerous if it was snow-covered and icy. The last snowfield was still very hard and icy early in the day so we put our crampons on for traction. The run out there isn’t that bad right now but catching speed on icy snow might land you on some rocks. From there we scramble up the last bit making it to the ladders and the lookout. Took us about 1 1/2 hours from the tin can gap The lookout is absolutely amazing. Every single cascade mountain between Baker to Glacier to Rainier is all laid out there for you. Quite the show. A windy evening seemed to push away all the smoke for a very clear beautiful morning at the Lookout where we spent 30 minutes peering over a 2500 foot drop off into the sea of mountains. Wondering how amazing it would have been up there for sunset and overnight. We made our way down swiftly passing two small groups of friendly people getting back to the trail head in about four hours. The bike ride down only took 45 minutes and totally redeemed a crappy slug up with the bike. I will do this on again but will leave earlier to try and stay in the killer lookout. Also, this time of year makes it a bit easier to navigate with minimal snow.