Downey Creek — Wednesday, Jul. 31, 2002

North Cascades > Mountain Loop Highway

We came down from Itswoot Ridge and found the trail down to Cub Lake and up over the ridge into the Bachelor Creek drainage to be in preety good shape. There is a trail beat into the heather for about a mile along upper Bachelor Creek that is quite pleasant until it disappears under an enormous pile of avalance debris. Stick to the north side of the creek where the trail reappears. After another mile or so the trail crosses to the south side. It is wildly overgrown with an enormous number of down trees across. This is very tough going indeed. The upper part of the Downey Creek trail isn't maintained any better than the non-maintained trail on Bachelor Creek. Its overgrown, with down timber. In addition, some of the puncheon bridges have rotted. I actually put my foot through one.