PTARMIGAN TRAVERSE It must have been about 30 years ago during a hike to Cascade Pass that someone pointed to a scary looking trail heading South from the pass and said ""That's the Ptarmigan Traverse"". He didn't say much about the ""Traverse"" then, but something in the tone of his voice told me there was something special about this route. The Ptarmigan Traverse is a 30 mile alpine climbing route through one of the most scenic sections of the North Cascades. It takes 5 days to complete, if no extra days are allocated to bag peaks along the way. If traveling from North to South, there is a total of about 13,000 ft of ascent done - much of it up glaciers and 15,000 of descent - much on steep or moderately steep snow. At the end of each day's descent there is a strategically placed scenic pond or lake by which to camp and plan for the next day's leg of the journey. North to South, each leg is more dramatic and scenic than the last. I have grown risk averse in the last 30 years, even as the lure and legend of the Ptarmigan has grown on me. The Ptarmigan is supposed to be a 'climber's Route' and I am now just a backpacker, so I had spent a fair amount of time over the last few years looking for a way of 'sneaking' into this incredibly rough section of the North Cascades just to get a small sample of the legend. But I had to finally conclude that the traditional route (as described by Fred Beckey) is really the safest and most efficient way of visiting this essence of the North Cascades. Early this year I mentioned the Ptarmigan to an old climbing companion of mine. He called another climber he knew and we had a rope team. I bought a new pair of crampons, prusics, seat harness, and ascenders; polished up my ice axe and fished out my old copy of 'Freedom of the Hills' and started reading up on girth hitches, Klemheist knots, Muenter hitches and other matters pertaining to crevasse rescue. When we arrived at the Cascade Pass trail head on Aug 19, I was not the picture of confidence but the Cache glacier, which is the first encountered en route, is a good confidence builder. Not too steep, few crevasses and (as of Aug 19) no moat at the top. During the next 3 climbing days, all the other glaciers were almost as obliging. No moats or obviously difficult sections. The route (Beckey) always enters glaciers above their most active zones. Of course, its the crevasse you don't see that gets you, but with my crampons I at least had the illusion of control while crossing the glaciers. It was the steep hard (non-glacier) morning snow approach to 'Red Ledge' that had me hyperventilating with anxiety. I was not wearing crampons, the tread on my boots was poor and the snow was too hard to kick into more than about and inch. I don't think I've ever sweated so much in such a short period in my life. More practise self arresting on steep hard snow would have prepared me for this. The second day was the only bad weather of the entire trip. After leaving camp 1 at Koolaid Lake, clearing Red Ledge and traversing to the Middle Cascade glacier, we climbed the glacier in fog (200' visibility) and had to find the Spider-Formidable Col using altimeter, compass and topo maps. This col is an amazingly narrow gap in an otherwise impregnable mountain wall. Sliding through this gap, you enter another region. You can imagine what the hero of 'Lost Horizon' felt like when he was lead through that Himalayan pass to his first view of the Valley of the Blue Moon. Below the Spider-Formidable Col is the long spiral down to Yang Yang Lakes. We spent 2 days at these meadowy lakes. My companions bagged peaks and I lounged around and took pictures. This is a marvelous location to ponder where you've been and where you're going. Looking North, you see the Spider-Formidable mountain wall, and the col from which you have descended. Looking South you can see the next leg of the journey - the LeConte Glacier - another 'super highway' over an otherwise impenetrable mountain wall. After leaving Yang Yang lakes (morning of day 4) and climbing to the top of the LeConte glacier (LeConte-Sentinel Saddle) we began the short descent down to the upper reaches of the South Cascade glacier. But before descending, we dropped our 50 lb packs and took a .6 mile detour (southeast) across the top of the LeConte glacier to a viewpoint where we could see Dome Peak for the first time during the trip. This was perhaps the most spectacular view of the entire trip. Full face view of the whole Dome region with Glacier Peak just to the right. The South Cascade Glacier is below the LeConte-Sentinel Saddle and is just about as flat and level as a glacier can get. The descent from the top of the South Cascade Glacier to White Rock Lakes (3rd camp) was easy. While Yang Yang Lakes are green and meadowy, White Rock Lakes are ice and rock. But with sublime views of Dome Peak and the next leg of the route - Dana Glacier with Spire Col at it's top. Spire Col marks the highest point of the Traverse (7,800 ‘). On day 5, we climbed the Dana Glacier to Spire Col and descended to Itswood Ridge and camped there at 6400' in a lovely meadow on the ridge. On leaving Spire Col you leave the high point of the traverse and begin the long (12 mile) trudge out Batchelor and Downey creeks to the Suiattle River road. It took us 2 days. The Bachelor Creek trail has not been maintained in decades and to make matters worse, there has recently been an enormous avalanche induced blowdown of trees which has completely obliterated 1 mile of the trail. The entire valley from the 5500 contour down to the 4600 contour has been been completely covered by debris. To bypass this catastrophe we had to climb through a quarter mile of jumbled logs and meander through the woods around the edges of the blowdown til we found the trail again. We camped a Six Mile Camp where Bachelor Creek meet Downey Creek and hiked out Downey Creek to the Suiattle River Road on our last day (day 7).

Entire trip took 7 days. Cascade Pass trail OK Ptarmigan Traverse OK Bachelor Creek trail - wiped out - landslide. Downey Creek Trail - OK Bugs bad

We came down from Itswoot Ridge and found the trail down to Cub Lake and up over the ridge into the Bachelor Creek drainage to be in preety good shape. There is a trail beat into the heather for about a mile along upper Bachelor Creek that is quite pleasant until it disappears under an enormous pile of avalance debris. Stick to the north side of the creek where the trail reappears. After another mile or so the trail crosses to the south side. It is wildly overgrown with an enormous number of down trees across. This is very tough going indeed. The upper part of the Downey Creek trail isn't maintained any better than the non-maintained trail on Bachelor Creek. Its overgrown, with down timber. In addition, some of the puncheon bridges have rotted. I actually put my foot through one.

Downey Creek #768 - The trail is in fairly good shape. It requires 30 or so logs of up to 40"" to be removed. Bachelor Creek to Cub Lake Way Trail - trial has about a hundred logs to cross for the first 3 or 4 miles, however when you approach the first views of the climb to the upper basin a 2 mile long avalanch has made the trail impassable and impossible to find. You can not avoid the logs and brush, but you can make it easier if you stay to the right and go strait up the headwall and rejoin the trail on top of the ridge. Plan on 2 extra hours of dregery and gasp in amaisment that an avalanch can be so big - this was a monster. Cub lake is mostly frozen over and two campsites are open. The trail continues up tward Dome Peak in good condition crossing major avelanches and the Dome Peak climb is snow after Itsook Ridge. WTA please schedule to clear this trail, 2-weeks with 4 chainsaws and 2 green machines running 8 hours a day would do it. [Online Editor's note: The Downey Creek is in the Glacier Peak Wilderness. No mechanized equipement - including chainsaws - is allowed. We last logged out the Downey Creek trail using crosscut saws 2 years ago. It took many long days.]

this is a hike that starts off as promising, with a trail with some ancient trees but then runs into blow-downs. one has to climb over one of two fallen trees to cross a small unnamed creek. there is a nice campsite about 3 miles. above there is a way over-grown trail that does not appear to have been used in years. the trail map says the trail goes to 7 miles. i chose not to go much past mile 4. there were two fisherman that we ran into, to presumably there is some good fishing in the creek that the trail follows. in summary: not recommended.