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More than a trip report, this is a short non-fiction story so grab a cup of coffee and a comfy chair.
I have, for several years, wanted to visit Stehekin. Stehekin is a town you can only access via hiking in or taking a passenger-only ferry from Chelan. If I’m honest I’m not sure what is there in the town other than a post office and, more importantly, a world class bakery. Ultimately I just want to visit because of the uniqueness of the town, and for a cinnamon roll. I find these types of places fascinating.
To that end I applied for the lottery to get a permit to hike in the North Cascades National Park. Similar to other national parks you need permits to camp overnight and although Stehekin isn’t in the North Cascades Park most of the trails leading out to the west from town are. I got the permit and had a route planned that would take me on a loop from Rainy Pass (technically the Bridge Creek Trailhead, which is a mile or two from Rainy Pass) on Highway 20, down to Stehekin via McAlester Lake and then loop back via Rainbow Lake and finishing on a section of the PCT. All told it was about a 40 mile loop and I had a permit for three nights/four days.
I asked my good friend, Jeremy Likness, if he wanted to join me on this little adventure and he enthusiastically agreed to take part in the madness.
This was all planned back in March. So far, so good.
The American west is turning into a land of almost continuous forest fires and anytime later in the summer than early July seems to be prime fire season now. It’s sad and it’s clearly visible that the forests are stressed from the heat we’ve been experiencing. Trees are dying and are susceptible to invasive beetles and whatnot, but fire is the real danger.
The Sourdough Fire has been burning for the better part of a month now and has closed Highway 20 east of Newhalem to somewhere past Ross Lake for most of that time. The fire isn’t close to where Jeremy and I were planning to hike but the road closure did create a problem because technically I had to go in person to the ranger station in the small town of Marblemount to physically get our permits. To then get to our trailhead would involve driving all the way around back past Monroe, up Steven’s Pass to Wenatchee and then up to Winthrop and out Highway 20 from the opposite direction to the trailhead. All told, that’s a 400+ mile, 8 hour drive.
That didn’t seem realistic so the backup plan was to hike one of my favorite loops, Spider Gap to Buck Creek Pass. The mileage is similar to the North Cascades loop and I’ve been wanting to take Jeremy on it for a couple of years now because it is a classic hike with everything that makes an epic backpacking trip, mountain views, huge alpine meadows, wildlife, rivers, you name it, this trail has it.
So, we had options. If you’re paying attention the title of the post is a bit of a spoiler as to which trail we ended up hiking but we’ll get there soon enough…
I was supposed to pick up my permit on Tuesday morning and our hike was planned for Tuesday-Friday. Monday I called the ranger station to see if it would be possible to get the permit in some other manner besides showing up in person, and to even make sure the trails were open. I spoke with a nice lady who understood my concern about the drive and she was able to give me access to print the permit myself at home. She also confirmed the trails on the east side of the park were open and in good shape. This solved a major problem.
We still had to access the trailhead from the east side, which was a 4 1/2 hour drive, but it’s a nice drive (if there is such a thing). We made a last minute call that rather than leaving at 4am to get to the trailhead we would drive over after Jeremy got off work and spend the night in Winthrop, which is only a 30 minute drive from the Bridge Creek Trailhead.
Winthrop is a cute little town in the Methow Valley. You’ve heard of one stoplight towns. Winthrop is a zero stoplight town, only a few blocks long. A gateway to all things outdoors, Winthrop doesn’t have much, but it’s a town I’ve been through several times over the years and find very interesting.
I got us a room at a little lodge style motel and we were there by 9pm. I had told the motel proprietor we would be arriving fairly late and her response was that she actually closed at 6pm but would leave our room key in the vestibule. When we arrived, sure enough, the key was sitting on a bench in an envelope with my name on it, along with half a dozen other similar envelopes. This is how things work in the small town. Jeremy and I went to a bar and grill/pool hall (with a grand total of two pool tables) since it was the only place still open serving food after 9pm. We had a decent meal and then went to the same place the next morning for breakfast because, again, they were the only place open for breakfast at 7am.
With full stomachs we headed out to the trail. We were at the trailhead by 8:30. It was a bit surreal in that there were only a few cars on the road. Normally Highway 20 is a major tourist route in the summer but with the Sourdough fire closing the western portion of the highway there wasn’t much traffic. We parked at the trailhead and Jeremy got out to take some GoPro video shots. He walked around the parking lot a bit and then turned back towards the truck. “What’s that?”, he said. I looked behind me and on the south side of the peak behind us was smoke.
About that time three or four Forest Service trucks with fire personnel pulled into the lot and a few minutes later a truck with National Parks employees also showed up. It turns out we were seeing the start of what is now being called the Blue Lake fire. We talked briefly with one of the fire fighters and tried to get a sense of perspective on how the fire might affect our itinerary. He quite bluntly told us that he had more important things to worry about than our hike and we were on our own as far as making a decision was concerned. Based on where the fire was and the potential for road and trail closures, Jeremy and I reluctantly agreed that we should probably go to plan B.
As we talked a hiker exited the trail and came over to us. He was hiking the PCT northbound and was looking for a ride to Winthrop. Based on our experience over the last ten minutes we were headed back to Winthrop so we offered to give him a lift. So, we spent an hour driving from Winthrop and back in order to give a PCT hiker a ride. God has a plan for everything.
As we were leaving the trailhead we watched a helicopter dump, what we could only assume was the first firefighting attempt, a huge bucket of water on the fire. The fire was quite a way up the mountainside and posed no immediate danger to the highway but we were close enough to see that it was quickly becoming a roaring fire with roiling smoke. As of this morning it’s been burning for a week and they’re really no closer to putting it out than they were with that initial attempt.
We decided to go with the alternate plan of hiking the Spider Gap/Buck Creek Pass loop so the next decision was how best to go about getting started. Spider Gap/Buck Creek is north of Lake Wenatchee, which itself is northwest of the town of Leavenworth. From where we were we basically would be driving right past the road we needed to take to get to the trailhead. The loop requires going up and over Spider Glacier, which although it can be done without microspikes is certainly much easier with them. We had left our microspikes at home but it didn’t make sense to make the long drive all the way back home just to spend the night at home, get our microspikes and turn around and drive 2 1/2 hours back to the trailhead the next morning so we decided to figure out a plan that involved staying in the general area.
About the time we were getting close to Wenatchee I got a call from my cheery park ranger friend at the Marblemount ranger station. She informed me that because of a new fire in the area all of the trails were now closed on the east side of the park and she had cancelled my permit. This was information that was about three hours (days?) too old to be useful to us. In retrospect we wondered what might have happened if we had gotten to the trailhead an hour or two earlier and started out without noticing the fire. We could have easily gotten to Stehekin and been told we couldn’t return back to Highway 20. That would have meant a ferry ride to Chelan and my truck being stranded at the trailhead for who knows how long since as of now Highway 20 is closed for another 10 or 15 miles to the east of the Bridge Creek Trailhead.
We stopped in Wenatchee for lunch and to see if we could find an outfitter who might have microspikes for sale. There isn’t a huge demand for microspikes in the middle of summer and the local Sportsman’s Warehouse didn’t have any in stock but after making some phone calls we found a place in Leavenworth who had them. That was convenient since Leavenworth is the nearest real town to the trailhead and where we were considering spending the night.
While at Sportman’s Warehouse I opened my pack to get my wallet out of my ditty bag and was surprised to find the bag was wet. Odd. I dug around a bit and found that a can of lemonade flavored drink had gotten punctured by my trowel. Everything in my backpack smelled like lemonade. Luckily my puffy jacket had absorbed most of it and nothing got ruined. Still, I had to think the smell would be a nice little attraction for the bears later in the hike.
We headed to Leavenworth, found the store and bought our microspikes and had a beer at Icicle Brewing while we decided what to do next. We decided that rather than spend money on another hotel we would just drive out toward the trailhead and spend the night at a campground close by. It was 106 degrees at that point in Leavenworth and we didn’t feel like aimlessly wandering around town in the heat waiting for dinner time and, after a big lunch and a beer, we weren’t remotely hungry anyway so we went back to the outfitter and bought some more freeze-dried meals for dinner and breakfast and headed out.
We camped in a campground along the Chiwawa river a mile or two from the trailhead and had the place to ourselves. I spent some time wiping all my gear off to try and eliminate the smell and stickiness of the lemonade and even went so far as to rinse my jacket off in the river. We got up early the next morning and were at the Phelps Creek trailhead by 8:30 or so.
So, after two days, hundreds of miles and many hours of driving we were finally getting on the trail! This is where most of my trip reports start so if you’re just interested in the trail report you can ignore everything you’ve just been reading for the past half hour and start here.
Well, almost.
Let me introduce you to Jeremy. He’s kind of important in what happens from here. I mostly hike alone but over the course of the past few years I’ve managed to sucker Jeremy into accompanying me on a few backpacking trips and day hikes and he’s always survived, although maybe not completely unscathed.
Jeremy is a highly successful IT professional who also has a passion for astrophotography as a “hobby”. It’s a pretty involved hobby and his work is stunning. You can see some of it here or follow him on instagram here. This means he’s always got camera equipment he’s hauling around and even though he pared it back for this trip, it still adds weight to the pack.
Jeremy also has early onset Parkinson’s Disease and this affects numerous aspects of his physical body but most certainly not his spirit. If you want to see a prime example of someone who is determined to live life to the fullest despite whatever physical challenges he might have just spend some time with Jeremy. He’s a fighter and is adamant that PD will not control his life. His faith in God’s hand in his life and his indomitable spirit are a constant source of inspiration to me.
Fighting spirit only takes you so far though and I tend to forget that not everyone is in fighting condition physically. It takes weeks and even months to work up to hiking 10 or 15 miles a day in the conditions we were hiking in. I’ve hiked over 450 miles this summer and I still get tired. I shouldn’t assume you can just throw a pack on and head out for a 45 mile hike. Wednesday was easily in the upper 80’s or low 90’s and we’re hiking 12 miles with full packs up a mountain. It could easily take down someone in decent shape and Jeremy could have used some advance training hikes before embarking on this adventure.
Ok, now we’re ready to go!!!
We didn’t even get out of the truck before we picked up a hiking buddy. Jen pulled up at the trailhead just as we were getting ready to head out. She attached herself to us and we hiked with her and her dog, Leeroy Jenkins, (apparently a reference to a World of Warcraft video game character who has a good heart but ruins it for the rest of the team by charging straight into battle w/o regard for what the plan might be). A recent divorcee whose husband left her for a younger woman, Jen had obvious issues but was a good hiking companion for a few miles before she took a spur trail. It sounded like Jen was hopping from trail to trail on consecutive multi-day hikes, just enjoying her new-found (forced?) independence. You had to admire her pluck and determination at getting on with life.
At the five mile mark we came to the first real treat. Spider Meadows is a huge meadow about 1/2 mile long and almost as wide with towering cliffs on three sides and a stream running down the west side. Many people just come this far and spend the night. Not us. At this point though Jeremy was already starting to slow and I started wondering what we had gotten ourselves into. The first five miles was a gently rising trail and we had only climbed about 500 feet. The real work was still ahead.
We continued through the meadow and took a little side trail 1/4 mile to Phelps Basin. The basin to me is even more beautiful than the meadow with more cliffs and a stream running right down the middle.
We ate a little lunch, filtered water to top off our water bottles and headed back to the main trail. From here the trail goes vertical with about a mile of switchbacks to a knoll far above the meadow that marks the beginning of Spider Glacier. I knew this was going to be difficult for Jeremy so I suggested we switch packs since my pack weighed at least 10 or 15 lbs less than his. By the time we got half way up the switchbacks I was started to seriously wonder if Jeremy was going to make it. We had tried to get an early start to avoid the heat of the day but the trail was completely exposed and the sun was beating down. It was easily in the 80’s. I decided to take off and get to the knoll, drop the pack and come back and get my pack from Jeremy. Other than one section I went back and forth ferrying the packs the rest of the way to the top of the glacier and I’m convinced this is the only way we were able to get over the top.
We made it to the knoll and the start of the glacier only to find…no glacier to speak of. I had read that the glacier was in bad shape but I never would have believed how bad. I have done this loop three times previously, the last being just last year, and, although the glacier has been slowly receding, even last year I was on glacial ice for at least a mile and 1,500 feet of elevation gain. In the last year though the glacier has been completely decimated. There are patches of snow but they are interspersed with large sections where the glacier is completely gone, replaced by nothing but the underlying scree field. On the lower sections we completely bypassed the snow and picked our way up through the scree (effectively just a section of rock ranging from a couple inches around to several feet). Toward the top we finally found a section that felt like the glacier that used to exist and we put our microspikes on and hiked a few hundred yards on the snow. The spikes almost felt like a waste of money but this was a steep section and they were genuinely useful.
We finally reached the top of the pass and headed down the other side. Although not offically a glacier the backside used to also be a massive snow field and that too is almost gone. Toward the bottom there was a section of ice but even that was probably only there because it was being insulated by a layer of dirt and rock.
At this rate I don’t expect either side to have any snow within the next year or two. I would consider Spider Glacier to be extinct at this point. Once the underlying ice is gone there is no amount of snowpack that is going to magically replace it. To me it’s incredibly sad and anyone who doesn’t believe our environment is in desperate shape needs to just spend a few days out in the forest. Back to my comments at the beginning, everywhere I go trees are dying due to heat stress (and once they’re stressed they are more susceptible to invasive destructive bugs and fire). Glaciers like Spider are disappearing at an alarming rate and the whole vicious cycle is increasing. The mantra for those of us who love the outdoors is to see it now before it burns to the ground.
Anyway, by the time we got back to solid ground it was obvious Jeremy wasn’t going much further. Every step was forced and he was hurting. We found a potential campsite and Jeremy took a breather while I went to try and find something a bit nicer. I found the main camping area around 1/3 mile away within a few hundred feet of the upper Lyman Lake. I went back and got Jeremy and we made it to camp, a beautiful site with wide open sky and the perfect setting for some astrophotography. I took a decent shot of the Milky Way that night with just my smartphone but it pales in comparison to some of the shots he took.
The next morning, rested and feeling better, we set off down the trail. From upper Lyman Lake the trail drops, oddly enough, to the Lower Lyman Lake. Along the way we were treated to a large and obviously very well fed black bear foraging for huckleberries on a hillside a couple of hundred yards from us. He saw us but didn’t care and quickly returned to his breakfast.
From the lower lake we crossed the outlet of the lake and started up more switchbacks to Cloudy Pass. Although a decent uphill it was nothing compared to the previous day’s effort and it was early and comparatively cool and we made it to the top of the pass in good time. From there you can go a couple of different ways, one being a few miles heading north to an intersection with the PCT, after which you have to take the PCT back south. The other trail is a shortcut trail that bypasses the mileage and takes you directly to Suiattle Pass and the PCT, but avoids about five miles and several hundred feet of elevation loss and accompanying gain. I’ve always taken the shortcut and we planned to do that again this time. A good thing too because when we got to the cutoff we discovered the trails going north were closed due to the fires previously discussed.
We crossed the shortcut to Suiattle Pass and intersected the PCT and headed south on it. After a half mile or so we met three guys going northbound who inquired as to whether we had seen the trail that goes to Miner’s Ridge and Image Lake. I let them know they had already past it and needed to backtrack a mile or so. The guy holding the map was adamant I was wrong but he obviously didn’t know how to read his map and I’ve done the trail enough to know what I’m talking about.
On this little section of the PCT we met several PCT hikers headed northbound.
There was a nice young lady from Japan who was very concerned about how she was going to get to Stehekin since she had mailed herself a food resupply and needed to pick it up. This is pretty common when hiking the PCT. Most post offices along the route will hold packages for hikers. Detours because of fires and whatnot are pretty common but for people who aren’t familiar with an area they can be pretty confusing. This particular detour routes people through Holden, which I don’t believe is anything more than a lodge and maybe a campground. From there I believe that the easiest way to get to Stehekin would be the passenger ferry, but I honestly wasn’t really sure so although we got several questions from people, I doubt we were much help.
Probably the most interesting PCT hiker we crossed paths with though was a guy carrying a log. For real. It was about 4 inches in diameter and 4 feet long. It was missing all the bark and polished smooth and had signatures all over it. Apparently the guy was carrying this log the whole length of the PCT on his shoulder. Why? I have no idea. He was hiking fast uphill and didn’t seem to be in the mood to stop and chat. IMHO though, hiking 2,650 miles is hard enough without carrying a log the whole way.
Anyway, we continued on and made it to the Miner’s Ridge trail around noon. The plan was to set up camp here and then leave most of our weight at camp and take a hike out to Image Lake and back in the afternoon. We had only gone about five miles at this point but Jeremy, probably quite wisely, decided to stay at camp and recover some more since the next day was going to be another big one.
I left camp about 2pm and headed out at a quick pace. It was at least 3 1/2 miles each way to the lake and I wanted to be back at a decent time. About a half mile from the lake I started feeling a hotspot on my heel. I figured I had gotten dirt in my sock and decided to get to the lake and wash my feet there. I got to the lake and took my shoes off only to find my heel had what looked like a heat rash on it and the side of my foot had a couple of small blisters. I’m still wondering why. I’ve worn trail running shoes for years now and this particular set of shoes has a couple of hundred of miles on them and I’ve never had an issue with blisters. It is what it is though. Unfortunately I had dumped my whole pack other than a snack and water back at camp, including my first aid kit. Lesson learned. As things tend to go though there was a woman there who thought her friend might have some bandages in her first aid kit. We waited for a few minutes for the friend to show up and then she went back to their camp and came back with a couple of gel bandages. They literally saved my skin! The bandages stayed on the rest of the trip and I was able to continue hiking without any real pain.
I made it back to our camp and found that the three guys we had met earlier in the day had set up camp there as well. Somehow they had managed to do the trail to Image Lake and back as well even though we hadn’t crossed paths. The guy carrying the map gave me a sincere apology for having doubted me and we had a nice talk. They were doing the same loop as we were, just in the opposite direction.
The next morning we continued south on the PCT for another three or four miles to the intersection with the Buck Pass trail. From here we headed up an aggressive climb to the top of the pass. Although the trail was steep for a couple of miles to the top at least it was first thing in the morning and was fairly cool and mostly shaded. From there I had told Jeremy that it was pretty much downhill the rest of the way home. I lied. I had forgotten there was another pass in our way. Jeremy was a trooper though and we did an 11.5 mile day to our last camp.
I didn’t realize this but apparently it’s now bear hunting season and we passed several hunters as we came down the mountain. I was awakened at 3:30am the next morning by what I am sure was a rifle shot. It was still dark so I don’t know what they were shooting at unless they were sitting in a blind with bait out and some blinding lights ready for when the bear showed up. I’m thinking that isn’t legal but I really don’t know.
Anyway, the next morning we packed up for the last time and headed out the last seven miles to the trailhead. Along the way we crossed a couple of hunters who had monoculars out and were having breakfast while enjoying watching a deer on a distant hillside.
Continuing down the trail we came upon a large group, probably three adults and five or six boys who were all around eleven or twelve years old. They had a huge camp set up with gear that looked really heavy but then we realized they were using llamas as pack animals. The owner was lamenting that something had taken a bag of treats in the middle of the night that they had brought for the llamas. Oddly enough there was a deer right there on the trail as well who had almost no fear of us and the guy was blaming the deer. Maybe the deer took it but personally I find it unlikely that a deer would physically take a bag. That sounds more like bear behavior to me. Regardless I was a bit miffed with the guy. Leaving food out where wild animals can get at it is reckless and puts both humans and the animals in danger. I really hope a bear isn’t what took it. If it was then that bear now knows that humans are a great and easy food source and it will keep coming back for more and will continue to get bolder and more aggressive each time it’s successful. Even their main food looked like it was just being stored in plastic bins, which might keep the squirrels away but would do nothing to keep bears from getting at it.
We finally made it to the trailhead but the hike wasn’t quite over. The way the loop works there are two trailheads about three miles apart, Phelps Creek and Trinity. You can start at either one and do the loop but one way or the other you’re going to have a three mile road walk. I left Jeremy to relax and guard the backpacks and took my keys and a bottle of water and started up the road to go get the truck. It was Saturday so I was hopeful someone would come along and I could hitch a ride. I made it about 1/2 way before a jeep came up behind me. It turned out to be the hunters we had seen having breakfast earlier. They apparently were just scouting the trail and were now driving up the road just to see where it went. Nice! The road is a dead end at the trailhead so they took me to my truck, turned around and drove back down the road.
As I was thanking the guys for giving me a ride who should show up but the three guys we had met going the opposite direction. At this point we had crossed paths three times and were practically best friends. Their truck was back at the Trinity trailhead where Jeremy was waiting so I gave them a ride back down the hill and we parted ways for the last time.
The only other interesting thing of note took place on the way back down the highway. The PCT crosses highway 2 at the top of Stevens Pass and it’s not uncommon for people to hop off or on the trail there. As we came over the pass there were four people all hitching rides. We picked up two of them. Evidently they had paid for a shuttle ride down the mountain but the shuttle never showed up, or maybe it did but they were at the wrong parking lot. There was confusion at any rate. Even more odd to me was that the couple wasn’t standing together and when the guy got in truck I could have sworn that he said, “I think there is another person that needs a ride”, so we waited for her to run over. That wouldn’t be odd by itself but it turned out that this was a couple who seemed to be married or at least together. They were in their early 70’s and he said he had hiked the PCT last year. This year she was hiking a portion (Washington?) with him but evidently had some business to take care of so had just done the section with him from Snoqualmie Pass to Stevens Pass. They were going to the train station in downtown Seattle and were taking the train from Seattle to Portland to visit their kids or something. They seemed adamant that they had expected the shuttle to take them all the way to the train station, which seems unlikely to me. They casually thought I would take them downtown and they would reimburse me for gas. I explained that was probably 75 miles out of my way and I had also been on the trail for days and I didn’t really feel like a trip to Seattle. Jeremy did a little research and it seemed like there should be a transit bus running from the park and ride in Sultan, which we were passing right by, and that would take them directly to the main transit station in Everett. The transit station also happens to be the train terminal and we thought they could catch the train there. Outside of that, our only other suggestion was to pay for an Uber because the likelihood of finding something willing to drive them to the train station was slim. They liked the bus idea so we dropped them off at the park and ride with five minutes to spare. Did they make it? We have no idea. It was a good plan but it was also Saturday and we weren’t even completely sure the bus was actually running on the weekend. Regardless, if nothing else, we got them closer to a population source. Their whole story though just didn’t make sense to me.
Anyway, that’s our story. It was quite the adventure and even though we had to exercise our patience and flexibility skills I had a great time and would do it all again. I can’t speak for Jeremy. He was a real trooper though and never grumbled about how difficult the trail was (or the issues just getting to a trail). Knowing him though I’m not at all surprised. I have never heard him complain about any of the challenges he’s had to deal with.
If you made it this far you should take a few minutes and look at some more of the beauty. You can find more pictures here.
