[dRoberts]

On Saturday July 12th, 2008 my brother and I (along with our Australian Shepherd, Mia) embarked on a 50 mile roundtrip journey from Irongate Trailhead (about 30 min west of Tonasket) to Cathedral Peak. This trip was scheduled to take us about 4-5 days to complete.

We left Ephrata (our hometown in central washington) around 9 am and, after getting some last minute supplies from Mountain Air in Wenatchee, arrived at the Irongate TH at appx. 3:30pm, started hiking at 4:00. The initial five miles are through what appears to be mostly second growth forest and a massively burned out zone from the Tripod Fire Complex 2006.

At around 5 miles you begin the climb (very gentle) to Sunny Pass. Things start to change dramatically as you leave the second growth forested valley and burn zone for a spectacular open meadow scene. This scene is persistent for miles from the Sunny Pass looking north. Windy Peak is the most dominate mountain in the area for quite a ways. (Fourth photo below) The first 2 photos are climbing up Sunny pass, the third is looking down into Horseshoe Basin once the pass has been reached.

We arrived at Smith Lake (1 mile off the Boundary Trail from posted sign) at 6:30pm, set up camp, ate dinner, chatted around the camp fire and went to bed at 8:30.

We headed off in a westerly fashion along the Boundary Trail towards Cathedral Peak around 9am on Sunday. We made the 15 mile hike along the shoulder of Haig Mountain (open ridge hike), around Teapot Dome, over Scheelite Pass, to the Cabin of Tungsten Mine, and views from the porch of the cabin to Apex Mountain, in about 9 hours including a cougar encounter(very brief encounter), and an hour and half lunch break.

Teapot Dome

Teapot Dome

We made camp just down the trail from the cabin, and decided after some discussion to head back to Horseshoe Basin the next day and not continue the next 5 miles to Cathedral Peak. We made this decision mostly because we got bored of the scenery in the vacinity and decided that Cathedral Peak really wasn't as impressive as we imagined and were more impressed with the Basin. On Monday we headed back to Horseshoe basin. After arriving back, we decided why not just get back to the car for a total of 22 miles hiked on that day (around 40 miles total over 3 days). *I had actually gotten sick at Tungsten Mine, most probably from Heat Stroke). All in all we both wished we had spent more time in Horseshoe basin and not wasted our efforts on Cathedral Peak. The hike was fun, but just not as impressive as the meadows in the basin, which are surprisingly beautiful. They reminded me very much of the meadows on Rainier or over on the Goat Rocks. I very much recommend this portion of the hike to anyone after something different in Washington, but not to continue passed Haig Mountain. Here are some of the wildflowers I took photos of. I don't know any names, but I'm sure some of you hikers could help.

This grouse was seen about 20 ft off trail just pass Scheelite Pass

I took this picture about 2 miles down the road from the TH

[bobbi]

when i first started reading your TR, i thought of the heat. i kept it in the back burner to ask what the temperature was during your hike. i read more and that's when you wrote about your heat stroke. maybe more heat exhaustion. anyway, do you know the temperature? i know eastern washington can be a furnace. your flower photos are: indian paintbrush, i think vetch, rock crop, shooting star, columbine, and maybe aster. thanks for sharing your adventure! drink lots of water and keep cool

[Gil]

Sounds like an interesting trip. That meadow looks great!

[kleet]

Nice photos of the area. How were the bugs?

[Traildad]

Thanks for the TR and pics nc. Nice to see a bit of green coming back on the floor after the Tripod burn. I have a trip into this area on my calendar for early September so this is timely. How was the road into the Iron Gate TH?

[dRoberts]

Well, the temps were around 85-90 degrees. I'm used to the heat, just not spending 12-13 hrs solid straight in it and being 7000ft up in the open. I tried drinking plenty of water but that ended being quite a chore when i started puking it up every time I managed to get some down. The bugs were a major problem. Mosquitos would swarm you even as you were hiking in the breeze. They were relentless. Even worse at a stand still. It didn't matter if you were miles from any water, they were there. Better yet were the biting flies, which I was disappointed to see my deet did not protect against. I have little scabs everywhere they managed to get to. So, the bugs were pretty bad. The Irongate road off Toats Coulee was strongly recommended for 'high clearance' vehicles only by a ranger at tonasket. however once we reached the TH, we saw an early 90's ford taurus stationwagon, one of the earlier looking Kia Rio's and various other small passenger cars. We drove in a Nissan Frontier 2wd with just maybe an inch or 2 more clearance than a passenger car and had absolutely no problems. Just watch the road.

[harrymalamute]

glad you made it back ok nc.how did mia dog do with the heat and did she take to the water up there? last year in june i did almost the same, packed heavy for 7+ days got to almost the mine when the heat caught up to us,my water filter broke so i was on iodine tabs and my husky wasn't drinkin like he should,so we turned around. but i'm still convinced it would be worth going all the way to cathedral with xtra time to explore.the other thing i did was get going early each day 04:30 and take naps on the trail middle of the day mostly for the dogs sake.

[dRoberts]

Our dog did great!! Plenty of streams for her to drink from. She loved the chipmunks, marmots, and gophers that riddle the area. (She was the one who actually spotted the cougar first and went after it until we reigned her in.) Especially for just finishing another hike up to Lake Augusta/Big Jim via Hatchery Creek the weekend before. We found an open sore on her underside, apparently from the Lake Augusta hike. She showed no signs of being hurt however. Great dog!!