Copper Ridge Loop Trail trip reports and photos exist everywhere in cyberspace. Instead, consider my word-based pixelated moments that when viewed together, provide the Rob Silvers version of a Nicholas Negroponte picture of our trip. THURSDAY Four AM Seattle departure. Six AM Marblemount trip permit. Eleven AM trailhead departure. One surprising Foxglove in bloom. Hannegan Pass ah-ha moment. A thistle dangles from the mouth of a pack horse. Chilliwack River headwater geology. The last tiger lilies of 2016. U.S. Cabin campground darkness disappointment. FRIDAY Thickets drying off on our cargo pants. Thimbleberries and currents. Cable Car or Ford? Must pre-date Chevy. Prime Graybeal campsite. Richly warm and ripe blueberries on Whatcom Pass. Challenger Glacier. Crooked Thumb. Taptoe Lakes Swim. Spread my ashes here. Moonrise over Whatcom Peak. SATURDAY Morning anticipation of 3000’ ascent. Park Rangers assisting troubled soul. Enough with the blowdown cataclysm! Old growth, old growth, I’m growing older by the minute. A suspension bridge? Forest Service take note! More old growth, but with some impressiveness. Chilliwack means suk-kegh fighting for survival. Redds with reds. Lots of cool hikers. Mindless uphill for hours. Mt. Redoubt. No need to say more. Chilliwack Lake in the British Columbian distance. Whatcom Peak/Challenger Glacier complex: Am I in Alaska? Copper Lake swim. Bright night, moonset over ridge. SUNDAY Best view from a composting toilet ever. 360° lookout views: Mt. Rainier, Glacier Peak, Mt. Garibaldi, Mamquam Mountain and other B.C. peaks (up Silesia Creek) as well as every peak in the North Cascades. Pretty sure about that. 10 AM arrival of runners who left trailhead at midnight and headed toward Egg Lake. A prodigious ridge walk. Eating lunch, seated in a sea of heather and captivated by Mt. Baker and Mt. Shuksan. Hot and dry. Where is water? Hannegan Pass traffic jam. Hot and dry. Hot and dry. Trailhead diva and mint tea. That’s all folks.

Ode to a Parallel Universe

On soft mountain Valerian breezes
Float the skippers of North Cascades National Park.
Lifted eyes cannot separate its wings
From the ice covered monoliths.
Down below, in the Chilliwack’s sockeye infested waters
Annual rhythms play out in the river bottom.
Where fierce combat proclaims winners and losers and
Eventually, they too, become one with the glaciers.

One of most scenic loop in our state. 34 miles and almost 9 000 ft of elevation gain. Breathtaking view from the ridge and classic north west forest along the river. Road have some bumps and hols, but not to bad. Trail along the river have many fallen trees, some washouts, but nothing dramatic.

My girlfriend and I decided to do this as a day hike as a fun challenge for her last weekend in the Seattle area. We're both distance runners, but the most we had ever hiked or run in a day was 22 miles. This turned out to be a fantastic first hike over 30 miles. Even the first few miles of the trail offer great views of Mt Ruth. The ascent to Hannegan pass is mostly gradual. The lookout on Copper Ridge was awesome. We were able to run sections of the trail between Hannegan Pass and the lookout, but most of the trail was too narrow and rocky to run comfortably. The same is true of the trail after the lookout, until the long down hill section that descends into the valley. That trail was mostly great, with not too many down trees until near the bottom. On the second creek crossing, we saw over 50 salmon in the river, hanging out and waiting to spawn. That was probably the highlight for me, other than the fantastic views from the ridge. After the river crossings, the trail tends to be really narrow and overgrown. There are a ton of down trees. None of them are super hard to get over, but it makes it hard to keep up a consistently fast pace. Probably the hardest part of the day was hiking back up to Boundary Camp from the river. I didn't realize the climb would be so steep. We were about 27-28 miles in by that point, so we were pretty tired. Overall, this is definitely the best hike I've done in Washington so far. It has amazing views, a beautiful valley, and some really nice places to camp for those who want to enjoy it over multiple days.

This was a breathtaking four-day loop with camps at Boundary, Copper Lake, and U.S. Cabin. Permits go quick so we grabbed ours Wednesday morning. We’ve hiked Hannegan Peak before, but never explored beyond. Thursday, July 28. Our party of two escaped work early and reached the trailhead around 4:30 p.m. on a clear hot day. Few other cars. Road to Hannegan Pass starts smooth but gets rougher in the last 3 miles. My low-clearance car made it without any real trouble. The first views of Ruth Mountain are nice, but we hardly stopped to enjoy it as we sweated through the first 4 miles of gradual ascent in a Biblical swarm of flies. Bug spray kept them from biting, and once we hit the pass the flies tapered off. We gave a passing thought to camping on Hannegan Peak, but we would have felt guilty if we didn’t use our hard-fought permit for Boundary camp. Descended for another mile into the valley. Stream at the campsite may dry up late this summer, but it’s deep enough now. Stock up, because there’s not much water between here and Copper Lake. Friday, July 29. We took the clockwise route, to get the views and lay of the land first. Ascent to the ridge isn’t too bad, though I wouldn’t call it easy. On a clear day you catch views of the Pickets, Ruth, Icy Peak, Easy Peak, Mineral Mountain, Luna, Copper — lots of things you won’t see on other trails. Once it really opens up Baker slowly emerges behind Shuksan. This trail has a lot of up and down, like a slow roller coaster, as another report said. Silesia Camp had the best view of the range to the south, and the valley to the north. Other than snowy puddles, or a 0.8-mile side trip to tiny Egg Lake, we saw no water till Copper Lake. In the final climb the lookout taunts you from its rock wall fortress. It’s a steep haul but worth it. On the other side the panorama fills out with peaks: Whatcom, Challenger, Indian, Bear, Copper, imposing Mount Redoubt, and as far as Glacier Peak. One of the best 360-degree views I’ve seen. The fire lookout was padlocked. We spent an hour up there, alone, drinking coffee, eating crackers, swatting flies, writing in the guestbook. On the way down we saw a cairn that must mark the turnoff to scramble Copper. Given a choice between that and relaxing by the lake till sunset, we chose the latter. (No regrets.) Camps at the lake — a beautiful, not-freezing lake — are spread out, with food storage lockers and views of Redoubt, etc. And at night, dark clear skies. Staying up to stargaze was a great idea. Saturday, July 30. On our map, no landmarks for the next 7 miles to the Chilliwack River ford. First, there are crashing streams to cross; stagnant muddy waters in green alpine meadow; bewildering giant rocks the size of apartments; more surreal outstretched bright green meadows, with Redoubt looming so close; blooming paintbrush, phlox, and multicolored wildflowers; and finally a steep rock face at a bend, with a slice of Chilliwack Lake in view. The real descent starts here. Red huckleberries got riper and juicier as the elevation dropped. Crossed a few small blowdowns with no problem. Then, an abrupt change to river valley flora, and suddenly we’re at the Chilliwack River, and for the first time seeing other hikers doing the loop. They pointed out where to cross, where it’s barely knee deep and the current is slowest. Water shoes would have been smart. That’s a painful minute of bare feet on sharp rocks. There’s a second crossing on the other side, but follow the markers to a wide log bridge. We counted dozens of sockeye salmon hanging out in the clear water below. So pink, so … weird. A fallen tree took out the sign at the junction, and past the Indian Creek camp, trail conditions got much worse. Long pants were crucial. There were at least 50 blowdowns, one trunk was about 5 feet in diameter, and at several points the trail gets lost under fallen trees or thick overgrown brush. All of that added an hour, maybe two, in our 12.7-mile trek to U.S. Cabin. Cable car was very cool — a little unnerving to see pieces of rope flying off as you’re suspended dozens of feet above the Chilliwack, but whatever! It’s fun! Our campsite was right along the river, with opposing views of Easy Peak and Copper Ridge. Sunday, July 31. The hike out had much more uphill than expected. Did not realize how deep we went into the gorge. Part of the way back we were leapfrogging a crew of four rangers working very, very hard to clear the trail. So hopefully that rough stretch will be smooth soon. Saw two marmots fighting over a rock by Boundary Camp. Skies were dark overcast so we decided, again, to bypass Hannegan Peak. In the distance about a dozen ant-sized climbers were scaling Ruth. This time, no bugs on the Hannegan Pass trail, till we were within a mile of the trailhead. Parking lot was packed over capacity, with cars parallel parked far back along the dirt road. Edit: More photos linked below.

I hiked this with four friends beginning July 21. We got our permits the day before. The person at the Glacier Station didn't tell us anything about large numbers of fallen trees or overgrown trails. The road up has large potholes that will bottom out low clearance vehicles. We spent our first night at Egg Lake. There's a lot of trail reports about Hannegan pass that tell you what to expect up to the pass. Beyond that, you drop down 600 ft into the valley before climbing to copper ridge. The views are great once you finally attain the ridge. Egg lake was a nice camp with a bear locker and beautiful views, but a total of over 3,700 ft vertical gain from the trailhead in ~8 miles. Staying at Silesia would've given even better views, but been much further from water. Bugs weren't to bad on the initial four miles, and there weren't many after that. The next day we awoke to rain, and then clouds moved close in. We saw none of the fabulous views this hike is famous for as we made our way to the Indian Creek campsite. It was a disappointing hike in the fog. Past Copper Lake the trail becomes narrower, and there's a hazardous stream crossing below the lake. There was also a somewhat steep snow field we had to cross. A slip here could have sent you sliding into a rock field at high speed. As you descend into the valley, the trail become less maintained. There's a couple blow-downs and patches of trail that are completely overgrown and you have to scout around a bit for the trail. Then, you have to cross the river twice. For us, it was 2-3 ft deep due to the morning rain, so we crossed on fallen logs. The next river crossing did not have a clear path to the large wooden tree over the river (and indeed, that is a ways off where the trail meets the river). The trail to Indian Creek at the junction of the bear creek trail is hard to find, due a tree that's fallen and taken out the sign, which is now just placed on the tree. There's more blowdowns and overgrowth as well. On our third day, we made our way to Copper Creek Camp. There were dozens of blowdowns and long patches of completely overgrown trail, including stinging nettles. Our pace was about 1 mph overall. Where the trail split to the cable car crossing is easy to miss because a giant tree has fallen down alongside the length of the cable car trail route at the junction point (look for hanging pink flags). Once we got past US Cabin camp the trail improved somewhat. The final day, hiking up from Copper Creek, had fewer blowdowns, but quite a steep ascent up to the pass. The final 4 mile stretch of trail to the car felt at times like being in a greenhouse, since the shrubbery traps the heat of the sun. I would not recommend this as a loop. The trail in the valley could hardly be considered maintained. It is a frustrating experience to navigate 50 foot stretches of fallen trees, and push through patches of overgrowth that completely cover the trail (with stinging nettles mixed in). Some trees have been fallen for years, and it will take a great deal of work to clear this trail, and a great deal of time. And besides, all the great views are along the ridge, so why go into the valley?