Climbed Remmel Mountain, and made a loop out of the trip by taking the old Coleman Pass and Fire Creek trails back to the Chewuch on the way down.  It was all doable, I lost the Coleman Ridge trail in places, and there were many downed trees along the Fire Creek trail.

Put in Friday afternoon at the Cathedral Driveway Trailhead at the end of Toats Coulee Road.  The trail down to the river has been abused by horses - there are noxious weeds along either side of the trail, horse poop throughout, and it has become very dusty and sandy in places where their hooves have chewed up the trail.  Heading north up the Chewuch River trail from the junction, I was glad to see it was very free of trees.  Mosquitoes were not an issue, but there was no shortage of flies.  The Four Point Lake cutoff was also in good shape - it was possible for me to ford the Chewuch without getting my feet wet, and the climb was not too bad.  The relatively flat area encompassing Four Point Lake and the unnamed lake above it at 7088 feet elevation has a lot of moisture around it right now, and the accompanying mosquitoes.  Spent the night at the unnamed lake, and slept with my head net on.

The next morning I broke camp, hiked up the green spur on the inlet side of the lake and cut through a gully to the ridge where I encountered the trail up to the summit (for a better description of the climb, see http://www.nwhikers.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=737982).  Beautiful day, clear skies, and great views.  I signed the summit register for Rosie and read my book on top for about an hour.

The descent was quick, but continuing along the trail to the junction with the old Coleman Ridge trail was difficult for me - I lost it and found it a couple times.  The map came in handy often.  Fortunately, the bush-whacking was not very difficult, and the route was obvious.  The Coleman Ridge has amazing views, and, after a prolonged period of side-hilling off trail, I came across some flagging tape and was able to navigate mostly on the old trail.  This section could use some more feet to keep the trail alive!

When the Coleman Ridge trail linked up with the Fire Creek trail, the main problem became downed logs from the old fire.  Once it started dropping down the creek valley, the trail was simple to follow, but, especially in the mid- and lower-elevation sections of the Fire Creek trail, there was no shortage of fallen snags. At all.

I forded the Chewuch (although you could probably cross on a big log jam just downstream of the crossing without getting wet), hiked back to the driveway trail, and remembered without joy how steep the driveway trail was on my way back to the car.

Once I'd seen pictures of Upper Cathedral Lake, I knew I wanted to visit the Pasayten.  We planned a few approach routes, and ultimately decided to start at 30 Mile Trailhead.  We set off up the Chewuch trail in the blazing heat (there was a heatwave throughout most of our trip).  

The first 6 miles are through a burn, and there are no options to camp until just before the Fire Creek trail comes in (where there's room for at least a few tents).  We camped there, and changed our plans.  We'd hoped to go up to Windy Peak and Horsetooth Basin, but decided that due to limited water accessibility and the heat in the burn zone (the Windy Peak trail looked to have more burn along it), we'd go up the forested Tungsten Trail instead.

This proved to be a good idea, as the trail was well maintained, stayed mainly under treecover, and was lined by wildflowers.  We camped by the Tungsten Mine Cabin, where we found a somewhat maintained outhouse!  There's water access if you follow the wellworn social trail from the main cabin southwest (crossing the boundary trail) and then setting out across the somewhat boggy meadow (maybe a 15 minute stroll) to the beautiful little burbling Tungsten Creek.

The next day we followed the Boundary trail over Apex and Cathedral Passes, and got our first incredible views of the North Cascades.  We camped near Upper Cathedral Lake, where inquisitive mountain goats came to visit.  Turns out they really do lick the urine off rocks...

We spend our fourth day relaxing by the lake, visiting Lower Cathedral Lake (which seemed to be a lot less visited), and trying to summit Cathedral Peak (a bit too sketchy for us without gear).

Fifth day - we headed down to the Andrew's Creek trail, where we planned to camp near Airview Lake.  When we couldn't find a trail up to Airview (turns out it's a faint scramble through the burn zone), and realized that the rest of our trip would be in an unpleasantly hot burn zone, we retreated back up to Remmel Lake and found a beautiful campsite with a reflected view of Remmel Mountain.

Sixth day - we headed back down to the junction of the Chewuch and Tungsten Creek trails, where we'd found a great campsite on our second day.  There's a perfect swimming hole fifty feet downstream of the creek confluence.  

Seventh day - woke up extra early and hiked out through the burn zone before it got too hot.  

Overall, it was a great trip.  We saw only a few people the entire time, hiked well-maintained trails lined almost entirely with wildflowers, and found incredible mountain views (and almost summited Cathedral!).  We'd gone into the trip expecting some pretty damaged trails (due to blowdowns in burnzones) but the forest service and horsepackers have done some incredible trail maintenance.  Every junction is signposted, and it's one of the best maintained wilderness areas I've visited, with gorgeous campsites everywhere you'd expect them.

Minor issues - we were warned about the bugs, but we didn't realize how bad they could be.  We brought picardin (bug spray that doesn't destroy gear) which helped, but we should have treated our clothes with permethrin and brought headnets.  As it was, we wore our rain gear whenever we were in camp, and spent as much time as possible in the tent. 

The heat wave was nice once we were up in the mountains (we barely had to use our layers until we were above 7000 feet), but made traversing the burn zones extremely unpleasant.

Visit my website for my GPX track ~50 miles

Specific trail conditions

Chewuch (30 Mile trailhead to Remmel Lake) - burn zone for the first 6 miles, beautiful all the rest of the way, with only a few downed trees in the path.  The first section west of Tungsten Creek has a lot of standing dead trees, potentially from disease and fungal infestation.  

Tungsten (Chewuch to Tungsten Mine) - The start has the same standing dead from fungal infestation but gets beautiful after the switchbacks.  There's an incredible campsite on an somewhat island between two parts of Cinch Creek.  The top of the trail (right before the Boundary Trail) gets a bit marshy, but this is probably because we visited in early July (just after snowmelt).

Boundary (Tungsten Mine to Remmel Lake) - in perfect condition, with only a small patch of snow on the trail southwest of Upper Cathedral Lake that will soon be melted out.

Andrews Creek (Boundary trail to Andrew's Pass) - in great condition (with gorgeous new bridges) but made a bit unpleasant by the burn zone.  

Took a four day backpacking trip on the Cathedral Pass Loop from the Cathedral Drive TH with stops at Saddle Mountain, Apex Mountain, Upper Cathedral Lake, Cathedral Peak, Amphitheater Mountain, Four Point Lake, and Remmel Mountain. Our first day was a bit of a bushwack as we decided to go off-trail and hike the ridge from Saddle Mountain to Apex. Not recommended. But camping at Apex summit is recommended. The next day we went to Upper Cathedral Lake and summitted Cathedral Peak. Day three was a 17 mile day with summits of Amphiteater and Remmel. Day 4 we hiked out. 

For more details, see my NWHikers post linked below.

This is an update to my May 18, 2017 report, since the trail conditions have changed for the worse in the intervening month.  The trail is much drier and about 30 more logs have come down in the first 6.2 miles to Basin Cr, mainly due to the late May windstorm.  The routes over, under, and around these logs can present some difficulty to hikers, especially with large, heavy packs.

On the plus side, the flowers are out and there is no snow on the 9.6 miles to Tungsten Cr, nor on the first 2.3 miles of the Tungsten Trail (to Cinch Cr). 

The bugs are a minor annoyance and the flowers are at their prime.

The bridge over Horseshoe Creek is damaged, with the second part being a "springy" two-log crossing of about 25 ft.  The alternative is a knee deep ford.  With an overnight pack, I opted for the ford!

All the campsites are dry and usable.  Just be ready for the weather - overnight low of 38F, with highs of 84F (and essentially no shade in the first 3 miles of the Chewuch Trail).  In the burn area, water is readily accessible at 5.7 miles (Chewuch R.) and 6.2 miles (Basin Cr).  The smaller side creeks in this area have dried up.

The road is open to the trailhead, with a 12" deep ford of Kay Cr just before the trailhead. 

I hiked in 6.1 miles to Basin Cr and only encountered avalanche & rock debris at 0.9 miles with no snow after that.  There's plenty of water on the trail after 4 miles in the form of mud, lakelets, and streams.  Logs over the trail are a minor impediment to hikers - have to go off-trail to get around a few of them.  Stock will have difficulty. 

Chewuch Falls are roaring with the spring runoff, but the spring flowers are not blooming yet.

The meadow campsite at 5.6 miles is dry and usable.