[geophagous]

I had planned on a fairly ambitious attempt to go from Salmon La Sac via Wapatus River to Dutch Miller Gap and then down the Middle Fork for the July 4th weekend. Planning and logistics conspired to prevent this from happening (a good thing in hindsight). So my new trip would be to bike up the middle fork road from the Dingford creek TH and do a simple up and back. Maybe do some exploring around Williams lake. Well my lazy self resulted in a super late start on Thursday. I left work early, but had neglected to pack prior, thus I wasted a ton of time packing. Then I had some house chores to do, so all told I ended up having dinner with the wife and son in Issaquah and finally headed out by 7pm. Arrived at the Dingford Creek TH by around 9pm ready for a 8 mile bike in the dark and maybe a bit of trail hiking as well. I biked to Goldmyer in about 1 hour in the dusk, and then ended up pushing the bike the rest of the way up the steepening hills and eroded road to the end of the road and the Dutch Miller Horse Camp.

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By now it was about 11:30pm and I was beat, so I setup my new Gatewood Poncho, read a bit and went to sleep.

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Slept well and being lazy did not get up until around 10am My lazy nature really asserting itself. I broke down camp in the overcast weather and explored the end of the road. Nice camping in the area and somewhat pretty. Not a single person around!!

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Started down the trail and immediately crossed the first stream with a beautiful bridge.

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Continued hiking seeing snow in patches all about.

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Seeing these patches so close to the TH made me glad I had not committed to going over the pass. More hiking on the really good trail. Saw 1 boot print and no people at all. Tons of pretty views across the valley and of the now swift running middle fork.

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Found the worst blowdown of the trail a couple miles in, which was not really bad at all.

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Took maybe 30 seconds to navigate, nothing like some other trails. Overall the trail was in excellent shape with this being the only spot really needing work. There was plenty of engineering tape with descriptions of trail work to be done, but they were faded and did not look like they were recent. Moving along I stopped by the river for a nice bit of lunch. By now I was about 4 miles up trail and the snow was getting far more frequent. My lunch spot was a small bare patch of ground looking over the river.

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Surrounded by snow.

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Just past my lunch spot I spotted the remnants of extensive avalanche activity. This would have been a very, very bad place during the winter.

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When this snow is melted out this will likely be a very tough spot to navigate, but with all the snow it was a piece of cake. For those keeping track at home this avalanche area is where the very large flat boulders next to the river are at. Where the snow came from.

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Moving on from here I was hoping that the snow would soon be gone, that there was so much just from the avalanche dropping it here, but alas it was not to be. From here on out the trail would become a rare and then non existent sight. The middle fork was quite nice and I loved this spot with water flowing over the sloping slabs.

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Traveling on snow constantly now I reached Pedro camp, hoping to find a spot to camp on the ground. No such luck

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The snow was at least 2 feet deep in the flattest places like next to the bridge over the river.

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In other spots it is likely much deeper.

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I kept pushing on, but after another quarter mile decide to turn around. It is now about 5pm and I have no desire to camp on the snow. I had concerns about my setup providing me enough warmth over solid snow. It had also started to rain a bit, the first time all day and I did not think that I would be able to make the Dutch Miller Gap and travel back to some of the snow free areas before it got dark. Being solo I put discretion before valor and turned around.

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This is the closest I would get to the Dutch Miller Gap. On the way back I searched around Pedro camp, but the only flat spot without snow had standing water, so despite the beautiful surroundings I would not be camping here tonight. The snow had not been difficult to travel on, I had postholed only 2 times and got great traction wearing regular boots. So the lack of a trial was not much of an issue. Heading down I spot my first non avian wildlife, a frog on the trail surrounded by snow banks.

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This flat rock attracted my attention and I called it "table rock" not very original.

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The few stream crossings on the hike were easy as downed logs close to the trail resulted in dry, if slippery crossings of all creeks. A moments search turned these "bridges" up quickly. Heading down now I kept looking for a flat piece of ground that was snow free. However everyplace was snow covered. By Crawford creek the snow had been long gone from the trail, but the small campsites in this area still had a foot of snow in them. A couple of fire rings could be identified but that was all. This was at 3300 feet. In the end I descended all the way back to the Dutch Miller Horse Camp at the end of the road where I had left that morning. I arrived back at about 8pm after a 13.5 mile "dayhike", but with all my gear Spotted this interesting mushroom in only 1 spot in the hike, where I saw about 10 of these guys. Mistook it as feces at first.

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The next day, Saturday I was to meet my wife and son at the Dingford Creek trailhead and we would all then bike back up to Goldmyer for a night of soaking. I cheated and stopped by for a quick soak and loved the hotsprings.

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The gorgeous view out of the tubs was also great.

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The new bridge plus approaches makes getting there so much easier as crossing the river looked like a very risky endeavor at this time of year.

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After my previous day the short 1/2 mile hike from the river to the Goldmyer area was too long, and the next 1/3 mile to the actual hot springs seemed to kill me. The soaking was divine I reluctantly left and biked down the road again to meet my wife and son. My son had gotten a bit sick over the past day and so we bagged the camping out and went home. Next day Sunday we got going early (for us) and ended up making it back to the hot springs for a nice day trip instead. Wife and son thoroughly enjoyed the soaking.

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The caretakers currently up there are 2 of the nicest people I have meet and were wonderful!! Can't say enough good things about them. So in the end I did not make the Dutch Miller Gap, but had a great trip none the less. The snow made for pretty easy going, but in the weeks to follow I would imagine that many areas will get harder to cross as the snow melts out. My high point was about 4300 feet where there was several feet of snow everyplace there were not trees. Going back in a month might mean a snow free trip to Dutch Miller, but then again maybe this will be a summer of lingering snow until September. Thanks for reading.

[JimK]

Okay, I have a couple of questions. 65 lbs for 3 days is your tagline and you use a Gatewood Cape for a tent? Also, I hope there is more to the story than just the bike ride in. Hoping for more....

[geophagous]

Sorry for the suspense, but I was checking something out. Did not work, so I resumed my posting. The 65lbs was before I "discovered" that a 3 person 15 year old tent from Sams club is not a good choice for backpacking. My current weight on this trip was closer to 35 pounds, including 3 liters of water and food. I am lazy about filtering water, so carrying more is my "choice". Hope you guys take a look now Also the road up to Goldmyer is perfect, and past that only a couple of bad areas were creeks dumped a ton of stuff on the road. Can't drive closer than a mile to the end of the road, but biking is great. Took only 30 minutes to go from the end of the road to Goldmyer. Saw only 1 couple at the Dutch Miler Gap camp, and they did not know the road was closed, so had hiked the entire road, and anticipated then hiking to Dutch Miller Gap. Needless to say they stopped at the end of the road, a bit upset about the closure.

[Conrad]

Wow, my advice about camping in your earlier thread totally failed to appreciate this year's Snoqualmie-area snowpack. I enjoyed the TR though. Well, any trip that you come back from on time, uninjured, and without car trouble is a success in my book. That's what makes it an "adventure" compared to sitting home watching TV.

[-lol-]

[geophagous]

Yes, even those with keys cannot get closer than about 1 mile to the end of the road. I should have taken a picture but forgot. There is a very large debris pile about 6-8 feet high and about 20-30 wide where a small creek dumped a bunch of stuff on the road itself. As annoying as the bike ride is, I am guessing that this "road" past Goldmyer will continue to degrade. So the forest service is saving money on not fixing this road. However while the weather was not great seeing only 1 couple on the 4th of July weekend seems a bit sparse. Nice for the solitude which I wanted, but as others point out this means fewer people care about the area and eventually it becomes a "lost" trail. I should have mentioned that it looked like someone had come through the snow area in snow shoes weeks ago. There were fairly consistent "tracks" that appeared to be snow shoe impressions from when the snow was soft as they were about 2 feet around depressions spaced about walking distance. If so that was a very ambitious adventure.

[H. Hound]

[geophagous]

Very impressive. That is what it will take to remove that blockage, plus another smaller one.

[Mark Griffith]

Thanks for the trip report! It will be very very interesting to see how much snow has melted in 2 weeks when we head up to DMG.

[boot up]

Great trip report! Really gives a good feel for the trail conditions. And I know I can never resist a good frog photo.

[Andy Schmidt]

I was rooting for you to make it over DMG. I kicked myself the whole way back to Waptus after I turned around near Ivanhoe a couple weeks ago. I would have felt complete if I had made the gap (or even the Lk), but now it's just one more "I was almost there". But that gives reason to return. Looks like you had a good adventure regardless. Hike On!

[SeaTacExpat]

Geophagus, out of curiosity, is Waptus Lake snow-free yet?

[geophagous]

I did not go that direction, but Fuu was up there a bit ago. I think I remember him saying it was snow free. You may PM him for sure.

[Gil]

Good attempt, anyway! Just riding up to the old road end with a pack on your back!

[Andy Schmidt]