Three of us backpacked into Agnes Creek Trail (PCT) from High Bridge on the Stehekin River to Suiattle Pass, Miners Ridge to Image Lake, and Cloudy Pass Aug 28 - Sept 1. Great weather, great scenery! Agnes Creek is a long valley walk, about 13 miles into where the high PCT trail splits and goes up to the meadows below Sitting Bull Mountain. The valley walk is one of the nicer ones, with views down into the gorges of Agnes creek, and up to the surrounding mountains. The trail wanders through drier areas of lodgepole, through very large cedars and towering hemlocks. Hundreds of trees, some enormous, were blown down across these trails last winter, however on all these trails, every blowdown has been cut ( thanks to the forest service, and the national park, otherwise a pleasant hike would have been an arduous task at best!). Some river crossings have been washed out, however stepping stone crossings have been constructed by someone, and a temporary suspension bridge is in place crossing Agnes Creek at the beginning of the trail (this precludes horse use of the train from Stehekin, there is no horse ford of Agnes creek here.) The high PCT trail is a bit brushy with thimbleberry and bracken growing over the trail. The upper Agnes creek trail between Hemlock camp and Suiattle Pass is very brushy with neck high brush in the avalanche tracks, and some washouts there as well, but all the blowdowns have been cut, and the trail is not difficult to find. THe miner's ridge trail is in good shape, the views of Glacier peak and surrounding peaks stunning. THere appeared to be a small fire burning in one of the drainages of the Suiattle near Glacier peak. We also hiked to Cloudy pass via the cutoff in Suiattle pass. That trail is in good shape as well. The smoke column from the Domke Lake fire viewed from Cloudy pass was awe-inspiring, and scary, that was Sept 30th, the fire must have blown up on that day. We didn't see any large animals, but they must have been nearby, judging from the quantity of bear scat, particularly around Hemlock Camp, and the old cougar scat and newere pawprint in the mud near Cloudy pass, and the constant compaionship of fresh deer prints on the trail. Butterflies were in abundance in the high meadows, especially the blue ones. Late flowers included asters, goldenrod, pearly-everlasting, yellow alpine asters, yellow paintbrush, and others. Bugs were not too bad, some mosquitos at higher elevation, and black flies in the meadows.
Comments