[fwb]

I'm way behind on TRs... A bit wordy, I'll try adding enough eye candy. Glacier Peak (10520+) & Disappointment Peak (June 26-28, 2009) N Sauk River road closed... replacing culvert. Trip: Mt Loop Hwy to Mt Loop Hwy. Mt loop to Mt loop: 46.5m, 28 hours hiking, 13000 vert gain. (+1 hour for summit and +1hr to move camp). Map: Glacier Peak Wilderness Washington -North Cascade Range (Geo-Graphics). This map has a great detail of GP on one side and the other a largerone of the GP-Chiwawa... area. Great for your peak spotting and for an overall that also includes that area (missed by teh other overall maps). We had ideal weather and snow conditions –and we did take breaks… I’d base camp higher and plan on a long summit day. Once you leave White Pass you’re having to navigate. Not like a typical mountain that has a “path” to follow. Beckey’s photos are very key to the route. Pre trip: Chatting on the trip up Shuksan, I ended up rope volunteering to rope lead for Glacier Peak. It's been on my list for years and ever changing with roads washing out year by year. I made a ride into the TH Wednesday eve before the trip to check out the road conditions. On my way in I met a black bear at mp3. On the way out he had made it to ~mp1.5 within 200 yards of the road workers trailers. I don't know who was more startled, me or the bear.

<The new culvert on Wednesday (24th)>

The approach : With a group of six it was an hour and a half 6.8 mile ride to the TH.

<Culvert Friday morning> This morning looked to be promising of sunshine. We left the bikes and began hiking at 9:20am (

[Backpacker Joe]

Nice report and pics. Very well done.

[iron]

nicely executed plan. what an area! i can't wait to climb this one myself. nice work franklin!

[Quark]

Nice trip, Franklin. I like the photos of Red Creek crossing – I was there on Sunday, and spoke to a woman with a baby backpack – she and her hubby camped at White Pass, and crossed that log with the baby. Another couple were taken aback by Red Creek – they had done the Pilot Ridge loop and Red Creek was the final slap in the face to the lady – she had never hiked before – the steep snow slopes at Blue Lakes (no ice axe, no trekking poles) , the bugs, the avalanche debris, and then Red Creek. She did great though (better than I would have), and was still smiling and in good spirits (she was dreaming of margaritas after the trip. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that she won’t find a margarita within 50 miles – Darrington is a beer and straight shot kind of town). Nice photos of the climb. I wonder if this route is more interesting than the Sitkum/Scimitar route, however that route is probably quite dead, now that the approach is via Lost Creek Ridge trail. I spoke to a man a few weeks ago that did the old route last year (via Lost Creek Ridge) – not surprising that he had the whole place to himself. Thanks. Glacier Peak is my buddy. PiB and I climbed it in '01 via Sitkum.

[Slugman]

Thanks for the great details. I'm planning on going up to White/Red passes as soon as the trail work is done in a couple of weeks (so I hear).

[Hiker Mama]

Excellent! Beautiful photos and interesting writeup. Almost makes me wish I were a climber.

[silence]

COOL ... glad you guys got er done .. you did it the hard way! yeah kim ... we met up the the baby ... he rocked! ha mom and dad too ... we couldn't believe they got him across the creek .. and thru the blow down ... and ha we were worried about our cameras and yeah .. on the way out maybe 4 or 5 mi out fm the trail head we picked up a hitch-hiker ... actually a backpacker around 7 pm .. he ended up being a guy who had passed us near the end of the n fork sauk trail as we were coming out ... he had camped below us (unbeknownst to us) at white pass ... anyhow it's a looooooong hike back to darrington fm there .... esp on a lonely mon nite ... but he was very cool ... fm wales and doing an internship studying bird migrations in the north cascades so we had a great chat back to darrington where he was living ... and btw kim ... do you know of anything going on in there? we saw a lot of flagging for dnr and usfs boundaries ... it would be criminal if they were planning some kind of timber harvest along the n fork and o btw there's 2 mexican restuarants in arlington fwiw ok i gotta get to work ... grrrrrr

[DIYSteve]

Great work and pics. The silver lining of the demise of the White Chuck Road is that this route has become the standard, and it is sooooooo much nicer than the Sitkum.

[Quark]

yahbbut, when you're sitting at Red Creek dreaming of margaritas, Arlington is a long way, more'n 50 miles. I saw the bushwhacker climbing club sticker on a rig in the parking lot, and wondered who was up there. It was you! DNR lands border FS lands in a lot of place in Darrington District. I don’t know what is planned – most of the trees along that road are alders, and other than pretty furniture, alders aren’t a high commodity (at least I don’t think they are). There are control trees for monitoring that have been banded. But as in all FS roads, they exist for resource extraction, and logging is a matter of course on FS and DNR lands. (it’s why they bother to fix the roads). FS trailcrew is going to practically live on that trail this summer. It needs some re-route work where the trail is being eaten by the river, and of course the avy debris, puncheon installation…..now that the Whitechuck is gone, it’s the sole route to the PCT in that District.

[silence]

kim ... the tapes started showing up sometime b4 red creek on the trail and beyond .... maybe as far as the shelter i think .... just a few that said "fs boundary" and dnr ... so i was thinking there was a chunk of dnr in there ... and wondering ... but hoping it was maybe a land swap or something?

[Quark]

silence - dunno if DNR is gerrymandered through there. I didn't go beyond Red Cree kand didn't notice any DNR tape. I would think the tape would be trail maintenance flagging tape - they're doing a LOT of work on that trail this summer. The trail is within Glacier Peak Wilderness, so no logging there. Ever. Occasionally they'll flag a tree to be cut and used for structures (such as the footlog over Red Creek going in this summer).

[Spotly]

[CRoberts]

EXCELLENT! All these TR's on GP are making me jealous lol...good job to you guys and very nice photos!

[Slide Alder Slayer]

Excellent trail report!

[Curtissimo]

5 STAR REPORT!!!