Bachelor Meadows, Downey Creek — Thursday, Jul. 4, 2002

Central Cascades

For those of you sadistic hikers, this certainly will provide plenty of pain for exquisite pleasure at the end. J. and I were planning on a July 4th departure, but the weather kept us in town one more day. Hitting the trail just before the crack of noon on Friday meant we were going to have to hoof it quick if we were going to get to our high camp before summiting Dome Peak on Saturday. The Downey Creek Trail is in fair shape with a few blow downs to climb over. However, once you reach Bachelor Creek, the fun begins. Crossing a small slippery log eight feet above the raging torrent or wading mid-thigh was one of those frying pan or fire choices. I chose the log and survived dry, J. waded and then wrung out his socks. At this point, the trail starts up immediately on the north bank. Not too steeply, but soon the first of dozens of downed trees some quite large blocked the trail. Then at about 3700' we encountered the first snow patches. Lower than I had expected. The trail had not seen much maintainence since 1977 when I had done it last. Devil's Club, Salmon Berries, Avalanch Alder, and tons of avalanch debris made the tread fainter and fainter until it became intermittant with serious bush-whacking bits in between. After awhile we gave up on trying to find the trail all together and just headed up through the forrest on more or less solid snow. (Occasional post holing) Just as the snow was becoming firmer and easy to walk on, at 4600', we rounded a bend where the valley heads northeast, and were shocked by the most awesome scene of natural destruction since Mt.St. Helens blew up. An avalanch had come roaring down from the west ridge of Spire Point and uprooted thousands of trees in is path leaving a quarter mile wide by mile long swath of absolute destruction. Walking over this jumble of logs, branches, and invisible holes was not our idea of fun, so we crossed what we had to, and went straight up through the woods. Finally, we crested the ridge at 5500' and easily walked up to the col above Cub Lake. It was 7:00 and time to set up the tent and cook dinner. Satuday we dropped down to the still frozen Cub Lake and easily climbed Dome Peak on perfect snow conditions under blue sky, surrounded by magnificent views in all directions. There was about 6"" of new snow above 8,000' from the 4th of July storm. That gave the high peaks a fresh mantle of brilliant white to contrast with the green below and blue above. Sadly, bushwacking down was almost as bad as going up and to make it a little more exciting, little black stinging gnats woke up and swarmed around us in clouds. This is a difficult hike, but I highly recommend it. Seeing the magnitude of the avalanch debis will give special and well deserved respect for the powerful forces of nature.