North Fork Sauk River, Pilot Ridge & Round Lake — Thursday, Aug. 9, 2001

North Cascades > Mountain Loop Highway

North Fork Sauk River Loop. We parked our truck and began our loop at the Lost Creek Ridge trailhead. We camped the first night at Sunup Lake, a very nice spot and little used. Six miles and 3'800 ft. to here. Trail is in excellent shape all the way to Lake Byrne. The 2nd. day we did the many ups and downs to Camp Lake where we camped. The crux of this traverse is to do the Black Mtn. high route as described by Tabor and Crowder or Becky's route descriptions for Black Mtn. aproaches from Lake Byrne to the north and from Red Pass to the South. The Tabor and Crowder route is somewhat more direct which is the one we did. Either will work and none of it is technical. Ice axes would be useful in early season. Lots of steep heather and flowers. Elevation gain about 4,800 ft. in 6-7 miles. It doesn't get much more remote than this, very wild, good route finding skills required. No bad brush just good old gut busting side gouging on alpine slopes. We scrambled up Black Peak from s.w.,class 3, before descending into a gorges basin to the south of the summit around 5,000 ft. We camped here for our 3rd. night out. This basin is huge and faces out to the Monte Cristo Range. The next day we traversed to Red Pass. After Hiking up onto the ridge from our basin camp the route pretty much gets easier, traversing to the west of pk. 6,900 and then back on the ridge crest we traversed to the South of Portal Pk. to reach Red Pass. We marched down the PCT past White Pass and camped at Reflection Pond. Day five we scrambled up Indian Head Pk. before hiking south to Dishpan Gap, turning onto the Bald Eagle trail and taking the high octane bypass route to Blue Lakes for camp five. The fishing was lousy so we hiked out on day six via Pilot ridge and the North Fork Sauk trail. We didn't encounter any blow downs on the trails, all were in excellent shape. 40 to 45 miles with side trips in six days. Bill,Jim,Jerry,John and the Lone Ranger.