North Fork Sauk River — Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2002

North Cascades > Mountain Loop Highway

There was a major avalanche on the North Fork Sauk trail this past winter, and Mike Collins made a good report on this trail describing that situtation on July 2. Mike's report noted how dificult the trail finding had become, and he also said, ""It will take a platoon of workers a week to clean up this mess."" I am not sure how many people are in a platoon, but I want to report that the ""platoon"" of five Darrington trail crew members cleaned up the major problems of windfall and stumps and rootwad debris in the trail this past week. The trail is now very accessible for hikers, but it is not passable for horses yet. The crew will return next week to start building rock cribs and such that are needed to finish the trail repair. There were patches of snow at White Pass. Red Pass has lots of snow, but from the limited view I had through fog and rain, the area trails are probably very managable to hikers who are prepared to cross some snow patches. There is no bridge over Red Creek. Use caution if you decide to find an alternate crossing on natural windfall logs. The hike up to the PCT is now going to be even hotter and more sun exposed due to the extra mile and one half of missing tree cover on the steep switchbacks. You may also notice evidence of many avalanches in this drainage this past winter. [Online Editor's Note: Way to go Darrington Crew!]