Ingalls Creek — Sunday, May. 28, 2023

This trail is lovely! We went up ~6.5 miles and there was no snow, only a small amount of mud, and lovely wildflowers. We heard one rattlesnake in a bush off the trail and were told about several others by other hikers. There were nice campsites along the river every 1/2-1 mile or so, with some clustered together more closely. As a note, both my CalTopo track and my boyfriend's Strava track show over 2000 feet of gain going down the trail ~6.5 miles and back, and just looking at a topo map I see we went from 1950 feet at the trailhead to 3490 feet where we turned around, so I think the trail description showing 1450 feet of gain for the full 14.4 mile train one way is inaccurate. The trail is rolling with ups, downs, and flat sections, but definitely trends up heading up the valley.

We got to the trailhead at 10am Sunday and then sadly discovered we didn't have a tent with us, so it was 3:30pm when we started the hike after a trip back to Seattle for the tent. It was warm in the afternoon and many camp sites were full over Memorial Day weekend, but we found an empty site by the river 3.3 miles in. The campsite had a fair number of ants, but it didn't bother us.

The next day we hiked further down the trail to ~6.5 miles from the trailhead (a bit past the Falls Creek Trail turnoff). There were a few muddy spots on the trail but not many, as well as a few small stream crossings where we were able to step across on rocks or logs. We stopped at a point where the views opened up across the valley to enjoy the sunshine, and then we turned around back to camp, packed up, and hiked the rest of the way out.