Pilot Ridge, North Fork Sauk River — Friday, Jan. 14, 2005

North Cascades > Mountain Loop Highway

The Darrington Rangers are indeed good to their word - the Mountain Loop is driveable from Darrington all the way to the washout at Bedal. Though I wouldn't recommend doing much more than tapping your brakes as your drive unless your idea of fun is to be fished out of the Stillagaumish by a tow truck. The Mountain Loop is covered by packed snow and ice starting at the White Chuck and kind of icy all the way from the center of Darrington. Though the snow does do a bit to even out the ruts potholes. FR 49 to the trailhead is where the fun really starts (who knew snow could make such interesting shapes?) and alternates between powder and packed powder bars all the way to the North Fork Sauk Trailhead. Road conditions deteriorate a bit beyond this point, but for now it looks like a moderate clearance AWD vehicle (aka subaru) could make it all the way to the Bald Eagle trailhead. But I digress... Eight hardy souls headed up the North Fork Sauk trail under cloudy skies and above a layer of fluffy powder. We had a spectacular view of Sloan Peak on the way up before dropping into the old growth forest along the banks of the river. I have rarely seen such enormous old-growth cedars and hemlocks. In the snow, this area is just spectacular. Snow frosted old growth, really cool ice on the rocks in the river - just hard to beat. The log crossing to get to Pilot Ridge was a bit dicey (as snow covered logs usually are), but we got across in good order (but a bit of delay in a fruitless search for alternate crossings) and headed up the endless switchbacks to Pilot Ridge. As the snow deepened, we donned our snowshoes, heading towards the even receding ridge. Regrettably, we hit our turnaround time about 500' below the really good views, but that's what happens when you try to snowshoe in deep powder. Probably would have taken us another half-hour to get there, but the weather was already starting to turn to wind and snow. The trail is on moderate slopes in a fairly dense forest and does not cross avalanche slopes - so relatively low danger in this regard. Really great snowshoeing trip, even without panoramic views - which would be possible with a little more time. 4-5"" of snow at the trailhead over frozen ground. Icy crust beneath a couple feet of powder starting around 3500.