With the nice but cold weather I thought I would explore the Downey Creek Trail. I arrived at 9:15am and found the Downey Creek parking lot closed because of unsafe tree issues, so I parked further down the road directly across from the trail. The trail starts out with some easy switchbacks but soon levels out, taking you through old growth forest. Most of the trail was in good shape but there were areas with blowdown problems and some challenging creek crossings because of the ice. According to some other reports these same creek crossings can be tricky during times of high water. Once this trail gets maintenance it should be a good early and late season trail because of the elevation. Most of the time you can hear but not see the creek and I hiked until the trail came close to the creek and turned around where a tree crashed through a footbridge. The area where I turned around opened up a bit with the sun shining and Green Mountain on the my left. I made it back to my car by 12:15pm.

The Forest Service is closing sections of the Suiattle Road (Forest Service road 26) to vehicle traffic for culvert replacement upgrades. Each closure will stop traffic coming from Darrington blocking access to Glacier Peak and the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT). The Suiattle will close at milepost 2 from Sept. 7-10. It will close at milepost 4.2 twice, from Sept. 13-24 and again from Sept. 27-30. Then, there will be periodic daily closures from Oct. 4-30. “The Suiattle Road is the main access in the area for hikers going into the west side of the Glacier Peak Wilderness,” said Gary Paull, wilderness and trails specialist. "The Suiattle Trail connects to the Pacific Crest Trail and other trails leading to popular destinations of Trinity and Holden Village in the Okanogan and Wenatchee National Forests, Stehekin in the North Cascades National Park. Mountaineers planning on the famous Ptarmigan Traverse need to be aware that the road closure will be 20 miles down the road from Downey Creek Trailhead where they exit this route." For updates on the Suiattle Road closures, call the Darrington Ranger District at 360-436-1155.

Downey Creek trail was in good condition except for a few downed trees which were easy to negotiate. It is not maintained for stock although someone had taken in one or more horses which punched through numerous places in the trail and obviously had some issues and couldn't get to Bachelor Creek. This is definitely not a trail for horses. It is a nice trail through forest. At Bachelor Creek we headed up on a climber's track which had multiple blowdowns. Also lots of brush which left our boots soaked even though it wasn't raining. After crossing Bachelor Creek where some kind soul had marked the way with surveyors tape we encountered a very overgrown trail. This is the way out for Ptarmigan Traverse travelers and many have missed this overgrown trail and suffered mightily. I see why. The trail is there and climbs immediately from Bachelor Creek. The boot track is there though brush overgrowth has covered it in many places. It is easy to go wrong so if you don't have a good boot track you are most likely not on the trail. Coming out into a nice camp site by Bachelor there is a large boulder where the trail comes in or goes out depending on your direction. Heading further up we encountered an area that has had a massive avalanche/s. We were able to follow the trail through the slide and found later that others had crossed the creek and gone up through the old growth by the perimeter of the slide. The blow-downs were not difficult to negotiate although we did take our packs off once or twice to crawl/slide under logs and we came out this same way. The rest of the way was easy to find. Good huckleberries especially going down into Cub Lake. We camped here for several nights, attempted to climb Dome Peak---got to the top of the glacier and pooped out. Challenging talus---loose and large in places---snow fields not hard to travel on. Used crampons in the morning on one steeper snow field. Snow was soft coming out. Crevasses obvious and not difficult to step over or avoid. Great views of Glacier Peak and very few people. Most finishing up the traverse. No bugs to speak of. Wonderful to be out and away.

Excellent weekend backpack -- my girlfriend and I saw no other people on the trip, though we did see a black bear on the forest service road leaving Sunday. The hike starts off with an adventure right off -- you arrive at the end of the road with no signs, park in a hastily cleared small parking lot, walk down the road a short ways, wonder how a truck and camper made it past the roadblock, climb up a rickety ladder at the point where Downey Creek washed out the approach to the Downey Creek bridge on road 26, then hike down past the old trail head to find the trail junction on the left side of the road. The trail was wet, evidence of much trail work abounded. This early season hike is a great way to see what our trail workers do for us all. A number of sections are slightly overgrown, only a nuisance if the vegetation is wet. The blow downs and muddy sections of trail abound but many are being addressed with trail work in progress. Don't attempt without gaiters and good waterproof boots. You'll want poles or a hiking stick and a good sense of balance for many of the stream crossings, but only the Bachelor Creek crossing is dangerous. With a serious torrent barreling down Bachelor Creek, crossing it at the very end of the hike is extremely scary right now. Wading is a frightful proposition, at least knee deep in very fast water. The only log across Bachelor Creek is a good 4 feet above stream level, and the prospect of falling off into 2-3 feet of rushing mountain stream is a bit much (won't be repeating). Fortunately for the return trip we discovered that scooching over the log on our butt feels much safer. In any case, doing this crossing made all the other crossings seem a cake walk on the return. There are better camp sites across Bachelor Creek, but there is a usable one before the crossing. The ""100 Hikes in Washington's Glacier Peak Region"" book talks about a ""Sixmile Camp"" across Downey Creek at the end of this trail, but the forest service trailhead doesn't mention it, and there is no sensible way we saw to cross Downey Creek, at least at this time of year, so ""Sixmile Camp"" remains a mystery. There is an unmaintained trail straight up Bachelor Creek. We only went up far enough to rule out an easy or obvious place to cross. There were none -- the creek seems to only get more imposing as the trail climbs.

I was thinking of doing a backpack Sunday-Monday and try out a new tent (Tarptent Rainbow, very cool), but the lousy forecast for tonight and Monday deterred me. I made it a day instead. Downey Creek seemed like a good option -- low elevation, no snow, out of the way along a closed road so no crowds, and nicely deep wilderness. It did indeed turn out to provide the solitude; in fact, it was one of the lonesomest weekend hikes I have ever experienced. I ran into one large party of dads and sons, and a couple of intrepid dudes who had gone to the top of Downey mtn. ridge. As most people reading this probably already know, Downey Creek itself destroyed a bridge along the Suiattle River road. The trailhead is on the other side of the bridge. To get to this hike right now you drive to where the Suiattle River is closed off, which is actually about a hundred yards before the bridge, walk to the bridge, climb the ladder to the half of the bridge that's still there to cross the (raging!) creek, and almost immediately you'll find the Downey Cr. trailhead. The first few miles were in great condition, and passed through some jaw-dropping groves of majestic trees. I love the cedars especially. Then the trail gives you better views of the impressive Downey ""Creek"" (now a mighty river), but the blowdowns, some VERY annoying, become more frequent. The work party Slugman was concerned about had been around on Saturday but was not there on this particular day. A lot of wooden beams and half-finished puncheon lying around. There was just one finished bit of puncheon, it was lovely (pics soon). Parts of the trail further in were also extremely muddy (at one point my boot went just about all the way in), but the work party is taking care of that. The streams were all of course quite high, only one was a bit tricky to cross, you had to go downstream a bit. I heard from one of the dads that Bachelor Cr. is very dicey, but I didn't quite make it that far. I had enough about 6 miles in -- it was my first hike of the season so my feet were aching a bit, and it started to sprinkle. Fortunately, it stopped and that was pretty much it for the rain until I was done with the hike. And just in time, because it started to pour as I pulled out of Darrington.