The trail was gorgeous! The latches are at peak! No obstacles, snow or bugs. The trail is in great condition, except it is really steep with no flatter parts until the basin. The road however….was in worse condition than the trail! Once you leave behind the pavement, deep stream fissures across multiple sections and exposed large rocks and roots for 10+ miles made for a very unpleasant and stressful trip. I don’t drive a high clearance car, but navigate potholes like a champ. I only made it to about a mile from the trailhead where I just couldn’t take the rocks anymore and didn’t want to tear apart the underside of my car. Even with a high clearance vehicle, the road will be unpleasant as it seems like it just goes on forever and those deep fissures will jump out from nowhere and slam you around. I did see two sedans in the parking lot, so it’s possible, but it won’t be fun.

Decided to start my 2022 #larchmarch hiking series with a trip up Carne Mountain.  Today was the first time I've hiked this trail.

The road to the trailhead is rough, but I've been on a lot worse - for instance Mt. Pilchuck and Twin Lakes (beyond Yellow Aster Butte).  The road should be passable for most high clearance vehicle without any problem.  I got to the trailhead on this first Sunday in October around 10:30 and found a full parking lot, but not many cars lined down the road - so I parked at the very first side-of-road spot below the main parking lot.  I'm guessing the hazy conditions, perhaps, prevented masses of people showing up?

There is quite a bit of blowdown on the trail below the meadow - I counted 45 blowdowns (plus or minus 10%), most of which were easily climbed over.  A couple of them required some thinking and off-trail detouring (or taking pack off and going under).  I know the USFS is very busy with higher priorities this year with all the fires - so hopefully next year they can get into clearing some of these.

The larches at the meadow are just starting to turn.  It's going to be a late larch season this year - at least in this area.  Many larches are green-turning-to-yellow...and some of them at higher elevations are a bit more yellow.  But, this is not the golden larch colors that are expected this time of year.  Maybe another couple weeks?  I can't exactly predict - but I can say that right now they are NOT at peak.  That said - the deciduous plants - blueberries, huckleberries, maples, ash, etc. are quite lovely now - even at peak colors with lots of red, orange, and yellow throughout the trail.

I only made it up to the Ridgeline just above the Glacier Peak Wilderness boundary.  Views looking over into the valley beyond were quite hazy/smoky. 

After a quick peak and talking with a couple people at this viewpoint, I turned around and headed back to my truck.  A flock of Clark's Nut Crackers cackled as I headed down into the larch area.  Other birds seen/heard were:  many red-breasted nuthatches, an American Robin, a Northern Flicker, a Steller's Jay or two, a couple Ravens, and a few lovely Mountain Chickadees.

A very beautiful (and very challenging) hike!

Had a change in plans and decided to do the Carne Mountain trail. The trail is generally in good condition, however, the first mile is slow going with the large number of trees down along the way. Found the register on top of Carne, but the PVC was not wanting to budge. Fall colors will be peak in two-three weeks!

TL;DR Trail Report: Basalt Pass trail easy to follow to Rampart Mountain, at which point you may want to consult the map occasionally until on the other side of 5th of July Pass. Clear from there to Larch Lakes. Pomas Creek trail (1453) easy to follow until entering burn near Ice Creek. From there, the bushwhacking is ashy but not difficult. Ice Creek trail mostly logged to Ice Lakes. Carne High Route simple to follow (in daylight). Recommend taking the high scree traverse from Freezer Pass. Old Gib trail (1528) easy to follow other than brief stretches as you circumnavigate the peak itself. From the ridgeline south of Old Gib to the trailhead is a nightmare of downed trees.

Long Version:

I had originally conceived of this loop to get to Ice Lakes without taking the burned-out Entiat Valley, with the bonus of needing only one car. That original iteration departed via the Rock Creek (1509) or Basalt Peak (1515) trails. Reports of terrible post-fire jackstraw lodgepole on Basalt Peak were not appealing and my dear friend Tanner was able to join with a second car, so we opted to depart from the Basalt Pass trail (1530) instead, shaving off a few miles and a 1000 ft. Aside from Ice Lakes, our primary objectives were to climb Mt. Maude and Seven Fingered Jack (7FJ), two of the tallest non-volcanic peaks in Washington (both top 9000 ft.)

Day 1 (13.2 miles, 7149 ft):

The trail to Basalt Pass was logged out and in good shape. We walked over Peak 6351 and Peak 6754 (Basalt Ridge), pausing frequently to admire the sea of peaks to the south dramatized by a light smoke haze in the valleys. Small plumes from the two fires near Lake Wenatchee were visible, but smoke would not become an issue until later in the trip.

We reached the Garland Peak trail around lunchtime. Much of this portion of the ridgeline is a moonscape of light pumice and alpine buckwheat, with a lot of (relatively) healthy-looking whitebark pines. Clark’s Nutcrackers were hard at work doing—what else?—cracking open cones. We admired the impressive north face of Garland Peak while we ate, then ambled over to the summit, which amounted to a roughly 90-minute detour. We wanted to get to Larch Lakes by dark, so we bypassed Devils Smokestack and walked up Rampart. Cow Creek Meadows, visible from the summit, appears to be a very large fen. Definitely worth further investigation! We dropped back down from Rampart, then followed the trail downhill nearly 1500 ft before continuing on to the north.

We were low on water at this point, so our despair at losing so much elevation turned to delight at the sound of a small stream burbling out of the basin below Rampart. There was also an obscenely large fire ring just inside the Glacier Peak Wilderness boundary. We followed switchbacks up through luscious larch groves to Fifth of July pass, where we debated running up to the peak. At this point it was roughly 6pm and we were not sure how followable the remainder of the trail to Larch Lakes would be (as it passed through some burned areas and steep slopes). We had already had brief trouble locating it at the pass, before finding it about 30-50m upslope from the map we were following. We opted to leave 5th of July peak for another day and continued on. As it was, the trail ended up being exceedingly navigable. I somewhat rued bypassing the peak, but we were treated to an enormous stand of beautiful larches, including some of the largest (larchest?) I’ve ever seen, as well as beautiful light on Rampart.

After reaching the intersection with the Cow Creek Meadows trail (1404) we began noticing very large tire marks that could only have been left by an e-bike or dirt bike. We began avidly day dreaming about the brutal vengeance we would exact on these besmirchers of the wilderness. Toss the bike in Larch Lake? Too much toxic battery in the lake. How about slashing the tires? That’s more like it, then they have to push the dastardly device out of the woods with their own two feet. [Tanner later reported dreaming of a high speed chase in which we pummeled the defilers with rocks].

We reached Upper Larch Lake and the surrounding expanse of incredibly flat meadows around dusk. Its reputation as a beautiful destination is well-earned. We spied a couple of headlamps in the next grove of trees from where we set up camp, but never made contact. I did confirm that they were not in possession of any monstrous machines, however.

Day 2 (10.8 miles, 4439 ft):

Day 2 was our “rest day”, so we got a casual start from camp, leaving around 8 AM. We regained the ridgeline via the Pomas Creek Trail (1453) and hiked north along the west face. The trail was narrow in places, but nothing was particularly loose. The smoke was still only a minor issue and the morning views to the west were lovely. We wrapped around through Pomas Pass, finding the first of many lion tracks that we would see over the remainder of the trip. The trail remained easy to follow as we descended into the Pomas Creek drainage, but it is beginning to be reclaimed by shrubs and small trees, particularly in the avalanche chute shrublands. Further down, we remained on trail as we sidehilled into a lobe of the 2012 Wenatchee Complex fires, but as soon as the trail turned to switchbacks it disappeared into powdery ash and early seral shrubs. Luckily, many of the dead trees had yet to fall, so the clambering was not excessive. We followed a few game trails, but mostly used brute force to slowly descend to a lovely camp at the confluence of Ice and Pomas Creeks. The sun in the exposed burn had taken it out of us, so we had a long lunch and a brief doze before crossing Ice Creek and gaining the Ice Creek trail (blessedly logged with the help of WTA). We broke out into increasingly steep meadows and ascended to Lower Ice Lake. Tanner briefly moved at an incredible rate in this section, but that was due to a flurry of yellowjacket stings. We carried on around the north shore Lower Ice Lake and continued to the even larger upper lake. Words don’t do justice to the beauty of these lochs. After dropping our packs, we were just able to get in a quick swim before the sun descended behind the Entiat ridgeline.

We set up camp on the east shore off the lake. As we lay on the pumice, Mount Maude and Marmot Pyramid gazed down on us through the moonlight.

Day 3 (9.5 miles, 6440 ft):

The going was slow in the early morning, but only because we kept stopping to take pictures in the gorgeous morning light. We followed the south shore of the lake, crossed the outlet (headwaters of Ice Creek), and stepped out onto a resplendent snowfield “delta” of meandering streams, vibrant moss, and alpine wildflowers rushing to complete their reproductive business in the brief window of time allotted to them. There were three goats on the more direct route up to Freezer Pass, so we opted not to bother them and instead looped around more to the north to gain the bench below the ridgeline. We ran into a small flock of white-tailed ptarmigan just before reaching the bench. Unlike their beefier grouse brethren from lower elevations, these little cuties refused to be flushed. In retrospect we could have dropped our packs here and headed up to Maude, but I had forgotten that the “South Ridge” route does not actually leave directly from Freezer Pass, so we ended up going up there and caching our camping equipment, before backtracking. The ascent of Maude was straightforward and breathtaking. The broad south shoulder is covered with alpine turf dominated by Dunhead sedge, spikenard sedge, Lobb’s lupine, silky phacelia, and a great array of other graminoids and flowers I ruefully lacked the time to confidently identify. True alpine plant communities are rare in the Washington Cascades, which largely vacillate between too low and too steep too harbor these beautiful ecosystems.

We lingered at the top to name peaks and snap photos, noting a fire plume that seemed to be blowing up somewhere near Darrington (perhaps the Boulder Lake fire?). We then debated our path to 7FJ. We were not confident enough in our beta regarding the shortcut that begins by descending the west gully, so we opted to go the long way round via Freezer Pass and the Carne High Route. The trail up from Leroy Basin is well worn until reaching the meadow at ~6800ft. At this point, it turns to choose your own adventure mode.

We ascended via the track mapped on Caltopo, which worked well enough until we got to the bivy spots below late-lying snow at about 7800 ft. Here the track essentially makes a beeline to the summit. We ascended on loose Olympics-esque scree for some time and generally found it easier to drop lower than the mapped “trail”. The sun was fierce on the SW-facing slope and I started to bonk at about 8600 ft. It had already been a long day and I was starting to get in my head about the loose conditions, so I opted to stop. I shouted at Tanner, a bit upslope of me, and he let me know that he was going to proceed to the summit. We had some bad communication at this point, as we did not confirm where we would meet up again. I sat down, ate a snack, and drank some water while I decided whether to descend to the bivy spots we’d passed or stay put and wait for Tanner. Moments later, I rock the size of a Frigidaire careened down the slope a hundred meters to the NW. I never saw it stop. I yelled at Tanner to make sure he was OK, but was unable to contact him. Then a couple of other folks popped their heads over the ridge in the midst of their descent. They had kicked loose the rock from a point downslope of where Tanner had gone, which was a relief, but they also confirmed that I had pointed Tanner towards a false summit before we had parted ways.

I began descending to the bivy spots at 7800 ft. and a short time later was able to make visual and vocal contact with Tanner as he descended from the summit. We were a good distance apart, however, and communication was difficult. He shouted that a better trail than the one we’d ascended was to his right (to the west), but I misunderstood and just thought he meant that it was easier to swing out wider from the ridgeline, but to otherwise descend the way we’d come. I returned to the bivy spots, filled my water, and casually watched the slopes for further signs of Tanner’s descent—then groaned as I saw that he was far off and hiking down a more westerly ridge, across a large ravine. There are many paths and wayward cairns on the shoulders of 7FJ. Thankfully, Tanner was able to pick his way down and meet me at about 7200 ft. We were grateful to be reunited and immediately began compiling our list of lessons learned. Tanner regretted splitting the party and I vowed to be clearer in my communication. Next time I’ll also return for a morning ascent, girded for the loose conditions, with a helmet, and with a better idea of the ideal route.

We got back to the Carne High Route at about 6:30 PM. Our original plan was to get as far as Carne Mountain today, which would have meant a minimum of 5 and a half additional miles. That seemed out of the question, so we decided to return to Freezer Pass for our gear and then take the next available bivy location. We backtracked along the route and topped off our water at the first drainage to the south of the 7FJ climber trail, being unsure of water availability further along the route (there ended up being regular streams for the duration of the route). The smoke had become steadily worse all day and the setting sun glowered through the haze near Glacier Peak. We finally trudged back up to Freezer Pass, marking our 3rd trip to that gap in one day (a record?!). We gathered up our things and proceeded just as darkness was falling at about 8 PM. From Freezer Pass, there is a more direct route that crosses steep scree to a saddle a bit below 7400 ft, but it was too difficult to find in the dark. Instead, we dropped into the small basin west of the pass and camped on a small knoll of exposed pumice at about 6900 ft.

Here I made my last mistake of the day: drinking two shares of whiskey by myself, as Tanner was not feeling like a nightcap.

Day 4 (17.4 miles, 4547 ft):

We had thought that Day 3 was our “big day”.

I awoke to a bourbon headache and the smell of wildfires. We broke camp at about 7 AM and headed for the gap we had foregone the night before. The ascent out of the basin, along the mapped route, was no joke. We were climbing on chossy rock before my ibuprofen/acetaminophen/coffee cocktail had even kicked in. This section also reinforced the foolishness of my initial plan of reaching Carne Mountain on Day 3. We carried on through fine subalpine Larch parkland, alluvial scree, heather, marmot screams, and increasingly hazy air. This area must be resplendent in the fall when the almost neon green of the larch needles change to gold. We passed several remarkable (and unoccupied) campsites.

We reached the intersection with the Rock Creek trail (1509) at around 10:15. We had originally intended to camp in this vicinity the previous, night. The trail is completely revegetated at the intersection—we’d have had no idea there was a turn off if not for the teetering sign post. Just before reaching the pass, we met a trail runner who had just come up the Carne Mountain trail and was heading to Maude and 7FJ before returning via Phelps Creek. There’s always someone out there who can humble you.

On our way up to Carne Mountain we passed a couple of bear hunters (gross) in pristine REI accoutrements camped on a slanting patch of vegetation. We opted not to engage with them, but did chat with a hiker and her explosively energetic young dog who was planning to go to Ice Lakes and Maude. She asked about taking her dog up 7FJ and we emphatically advised against it. The torrent of rockfall that combustible canine could have unleashed would have filled the valley.

We descended Carne and hopped on the Old Gib trail. Still unclear whether that “g” is hard or soft. We did end up chatting with a hunter near the intersection (why you would choose to hunt on the busiest day hike trail in the ranger district beats me). We told him we were planning on hiking out the remaining 10 miles over Estes Butte and he said it was smooth sailing from here. He seemed completely earnest, but his words would haunt me the rest of the day, grist for my mental mill as I ground them down for any subtle nuance of scorn or humor. Let’s just say it was not “smooth-sailing”.

Things started off of pleasant enough. The trail was narrow and slightly overgrown in places, but easy to follow as it simply sidehilled through senescing green fescue meadows and open woodlands just below the ridgeline. We stopped for lunch at the gap NW of Old Gib mountain and gazed up at that prominent chunk of dacite. At this point the trail cuts downhill to the NW in a long detour around the mountain. This is the only area where the trail becomes at all uncertain, so we supplemented a few cairns in the meadows below Old Gib’s talus-y sheddings. The trail was easy to follow once we returned to forest. Tanner got another wasp sting shortly before we encountered one of the largest silver firs I’ve seen outside of the western Olympics. As the aspect shifted to SW, the forest thinned out and became younger and we began to encounter numerous chest-high logs and deformed young trees, slowing our already tired pace.

We regained the ridge south of Old Gib at 3 PM. I assumed that the trail must improve from here, as Old Gib seemed like a fine day hike objective from the Chiwawa River valley. Instead, we quickly encountered some of the most pervasive jackstraw lodgepole and other wind throw that I have ever seen. The trail goes right along the ridgeline, and all along that ridgeline were piles of dead trees at 90* angles to our purpose, as if they had been lined up and shot. The going. Was. Slow. At one point I slipped on some bark and nearly gave myself a new orifice via a stob. It took us 2 hours to travel the 2 miles to Estes Butte, but it felt like an eternity. Part of one of my trekking poles came off amid the branches. In addition to the log-enforced calisthenics, both of us were starting to feel the anxiety of rationing our remaining water. We had not filled up at the last available water on the west slope of Old Gib, preferring to go light and still holding out hope that we’d eventually hit a “cruising” section of trail.

It was now 5 pm and I had just a few pulls of water left in my hydropak. The map showed 3.8 miles remaining and we thought surely the trail down from the butte would be in better shape, maybe even trod by hordes of day hikers. I took my last pull of water. We discussed it and decided to split up so I could scoot down the trail at a faster pace and get to some water. Shortly after separating, I ran into four or five logs across the trail that had been logged out and cleared this season, judging from the sawdust. I gave a little hoot of joy, which quickly caught in my throat and morphed into a wail of lamentation as I came around the bend and saw another long expanse of windthrow—completely unlogged. Here I skirted downhill on the west slope of the ridge and was able to avoid some of the jackstraw via game trails, but I could only avoid so much. After walking over the old lookout site, the trail widened and I thought (you guessed it) “surely things will be smoother from here!”. I soon arrived upon a comically absurd pile of down trees that inspired me to yell “WHAT THE FUCK!?”. While navigating the brittle jungle gym, a loop on my pack caught on a tree and I took it exceedingly personally. I frantically tried to uproot the 8-foot-tall sapling before taking a breath and simply unhooking myself.

Having extricated myself from the log pile from hell, I ran into an unexpected sight: backpackers. Truly, they must have been servants of Satan, for these two placid-seeming parents were subjecting their tween daughters to this unrelenting bedlam of logs. They even said they do this hike “every year” and that the trail conditions were actually “the best they’d been in a long time”. When the mother said that the log piles got even worse downhill from where we were standing, I nearly cried. I looked for signs that the daughters wanted to escape ("blink twice for 'save me', I thought), but they seem thoroughly cowed. Downhill I continued.

Eventually the profusion of logs did ease and I broke through into a mature, closed canopy forest of Doug-fir, grand fir, and white pine. Words cannot express how relieved I was to simply walk unimpeded after 5 miles of unceasing blowdown, but next came the slog down seemingly endless livestock-graded switchbacks. The trail swung far more side-to-side than the mapped trail route (the 3.8 miles of trail mapped from Estes Butte was actually 6.2 according to our GPS tracks). Darkness was falling, my GPS/phone battery had finally succumbed, and my inherent rule-following nature kept me from cutting any of the switchbacks. I was able to fill some water from a small spring along the trail at about 8:15 PM, which at least quenched that anxiety, then finally drug myself out to the trailhead at 9 PM. Tanner arrived at 10. I was relieved to hear that he had passed through the log-hell before dark.

Our celebration was muted, our hopes of a diner burger on Hwy 2 dashed by the late hour. We still had long drives back to Seattle (Tanner) and Tacoma (me) ahead of us. We each drank a cold beer from the cooler and I drove Tanner back to his car at the Basalt Pass trailhead, dodging toads in the dusty road.

In summary: This route would have been terrific if we’d simply dropped down from Carne Mountain. Until (if?) it is ever logged out, I would not recommend the Estes Butte trail to my worst enemy.

Total: 51 miles, 22,580 ft of gain (7 peaks/peaklets for me, 8 for Tanner)

One-night overnight up Carne Mountain Trail, north along the Carne High Route, and back down through Leroy Basin and Phelps Creek.

Overall: Great trip if you want solitude and are OK with some route finding. The trail does not mess around - many steep up/down stretches. Many larches above 6100ft will make for a beautiful fall trip. Solitude - saw only two other groups (except when on phelps creek trail). Do not attempt this as an intro to backpacking!

Road Conditions: Quite rutted the last 20 minutes or so to the TH. All trucks, SUVs and Subarus at the trail except for one Toyota Matrix which impressed me.

Carne Mountain: Maybe a dozen trees to cross before you get high and out of the trees. No water until the basin at ~6100 ft with a spring (Don't need to go off-trail as you are approaching, trail goes right next to the creek). Lots of larches in the basin.

Carne High Route: DO NOT attempt this trail without (1) detailed map or GPS and ability to read it (2) hiking poles and (3) a sense of adventure. There was a sign for Rock Creek Trail but no trail was visible. Good trail until Box Creek then things become more intermittent. All cairns we saw were well placed to help mark the trail. Box Creek last reliable water until Leroy Basin area (some snowmelt into a stream in the Chipmunk Creek area; snow will probably be gone in a few weeks). Only attempt this trail with a good map and route finding skills - we did not have a GPS but there were a couple times I wish we did. Regardless, by reading the map diligently we were able to "go that way" and meet up with the trail at the next saddle point. From the saddle at 7400ft, recommend following the trail right instead of down, the scree wasn't bad and there was a bit of a cut to help stabilize you. Last couple hundred ft of vertical up to the pass required hands for stabilization. Pass was gorgeous, flat (could camp up there in good weather) and had a good amt of snow on the east side. Could likely have made it down to Ice Lakes but didnt have time. There's a large cairn marking the trail south from the pass but we didnt see anything going north, but we did spot the trail about 1000ft in the distance so headed that way and met up with it by traversing the scree. Slow moving and a couple small slips but made it across. From here on north, the trail is pretty good - a couple five second "are we on the trail still?" but never too difficult. Next water is at ~6340 ft. Laughed at how steep the Seven Fingered Jack trail looked as it starts by going up vertical next to a waterfall.

Leroy Basin+Trail: probably 5+ campsites, most occupied on a Sunday afternoon but Im sure there were more we didnt see (didnt explore the area). Stunning scenery. Good water supply from the creek. Very steep heading down - even with poles slipped half a dozen times.

Phelps Creek: Good trail, no problems. Lots of people.

Overall a great weekend to be out and get away. Happy trails!