East Fork Foss - Necklace Valley — Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2003

Central Cascades > Stevens Pass - West

I took a couple days off work for a Thursday overnight trip to the Necklace Valley (I've wanted to get up there for about 20 years, but never made the trip…). Mine was the third car in the trailhead parking lot on Wednesday. The first 5 miles of the trail are relatively flat with some ups and downs. A bit brushy in places and hungry black flies when the pace gets too slow, but a nice walk overall. Then comes 3 miles up to the valley. Whoever designed this trail (was it designed by anyone??!?) obviously thought that switchbacks are for wimps. The trail turns vertical and scrambles up the mountainside. Up through rock piles, up through stream beds where occasional boot prints in the mud give encouragement that it's still the trail, up through overgrown brush. Up, up, up. You get the idea. It took me 5 1/2 hours to make the hike up and 4 1/2 hours back down on Friday. The Necklace valley is nice. Not as wonderful as I had expected, but that might be due to my exhaustion. Finding a camping spot was a challenge (though there were only two other parties up there), but I eventually stumbled onto the big rock camp spot halfway up Emerald Lake (after walking to the top of the valley in a futile search). The mosquitoes were very bad (not horrendous - I was able to eat outside the tent) and DEET seemed to confuse them. I didn't see anyone at all during the entire hike and ramble around Necklace Valley until around 6pm in the evening. Then was lucky enough to borrow a lighter from one of the other campers (I left with the 10 essentials, ""A six pack and four other things"" - but somehow forgot to bring fire). Having hot chicken and noodles was much better than the canned chicken and Pringles(tm) that I was facing before borrowing the lighter… During the night (at around 1:30am) there was a huge icefall/rockfall somewhere. The crashing and rumbling must have continued for a full minute. An awesome way to wake up in the middle of the night. The hike down was brutal and I met a lot of adventurous souls on their way up (there were 10 cars in the trailhead lot when I finished). And 4 days later my calves are still yipping when I got on and off the bus this morning…