We went up to the Suiattle River area for a couple of days to escape the noise of fireworks. We hiked just a short distance up the Downey Creek trail (my nearly 13 year old dog can't go too far anymore), but what a gorgeous trail! Thank you to the WTA work crew for your recent work! Hopefully we can get back up there for a longer hike someday.

We were very grateful and lucky to have picked this trail right after the WTA trail crew worked on it. We all said thank you every time we noticed their work. We started by setting up camp at the trail head (site at trail head and spots down by the river but steep to get down there). There is a clean toilet in nice shape. One friend stayed back to just chill by the river. We did have to take our boots off for one stream crossing but otherwise easy to get over the creeks. We had lunch at the foot log bridge which I believe is the creek before Bachelor Creek and then turned around. Saw woodpeckers, a little mouse, frogs, salmon berries flowering, skunk cabbage but no blooms, beautiful trillium and at one point a short little moss trail. I was surprised by how many boardwalks there were and how good of shape they were in. The next morning when we we were heading out there were about 20 people in the lot who just came in from a 12 day mountaineering course with national outdoor leadership school (nols) - they went up bachelor creek and then circled around up there (dome peak).

A WTA BCRT spent 5 days working Downey Creek from May 4th thru May 8th. Additionally, two, one day work parties were completed the prior week in conjunction with the Darrington Ranger District trail crew. We successfully cleared all the deadfall except one from the trail head to 6 mile camp at Bachelor Creek. The one large deadfall must be gone under using the trail bed about one mile in. It doesn't require the removal of your pack. Additionally, several areas were brushed out, several sections of the tread were improved, and the stream crossings were improved. The trail is now in good shape to Bachelor Creek. There are camp sites at 3 mile (multiple tents), 4 mile (one to three tents), and 5 mile (single tent). The 2001 Green Trails map shows the 6 mile camp site on the south side of Bachelor Creek. There is one there, but the actual large site is across Bachelor Creek. The trail to Bachelor Meadows starts on this side. There are good foot-logs over Bachelor Creek and the creek just before it. Flowers blooming are Trillium, skunk cabbage, tall yellow violet, bleeding heart, and the salmon berry. We had a woodpecker waking us up every morning at 3 mile camp and I heard a Great Horned Owl about 5 minutes north of 4 mile camp as identified by it's call. The Suiattle River road was graded that week also and is great condition.

Because of the warm weather today I wanted to venture into the mountains and picked Downey Creek off of the Suiattle River Road. Started out at 8:00am and had the trail to myself all day. This trail has taken a beating with winter storms, on the first part of the trail I ran into three washouts with logs, mud, and debris across the trail. I was able to navigate these with no problem, but this will need some work. There were also some blowdowns that required some scrambling over and under. Some of the streams were a little tricky to cross as well and were worse on the way back with the warmer weather. Even with these issues the majority of the trail was in good shape and easy to follow, the main issues being well before the first camp and not running into more obstacles until towards the end of my turn around point. After the first camp I wanted to hike to the Bachelor Creek trail. I think I was close but started to run into patchy snow and then more debris and blowdowns across the trail along with some damaged foot bridges. I turned around where there was a tangled mess of snow, blowdowns, and debris. This was still a great hike, you could feel the primitive and pristine nature of Glacier Peak Wilderness. I was back at the car at 1:30pm, a great day to be out.

We (Shan Shan, Jake our 13 month old son, Liesl our dog, and our friend Kelli and her daughter) had a nice day at Downey Creek yesterday. The Suiattle River Road is in good shape. There are a few sections with deeper potholes that you have to be careful with, but overall it's smooth driving. The trailhead is open (apparently it was closed to remove some dangerous tree). We hiked about 3 miles to the first campground (and back, obviously). As Sir-Hikes-A-Lot reported in February, there are a few tricky blowdown sections, but I managed to pass them all with Jake in the backpack carrier (and excluding Jake we had two novice hikers among us), so for most hikers these obstacles should be passable. I wouldn't necessarily recommend considering this a family hike until it is cleared up though. One area (tricky area 2 in the photos) will require some significant reconstruction of the trail. Otherwise not much to report, but I thought people might enjoy seeing the little one in the outdoors and see some pics of the blowdown areas. We met one other couple on the trail, and we ran into a women with two dogs who climbed the Old Downey Creek trial (which I wasn't familiar with) to climb Downey. They had to return though due to deep snow and the dogs disappearing in deep holes. Sadly, we also were greeted by the first mosquitos of the year around the trailhead. The Flickr album has some more detailed photos of the tricky areas so that you can review if this is passable for you.