Forum Index > Trip Reports > Dungeness - Marmot Pass - Tubal Cain 7/6 - 7/9/12
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Perry
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Location: Mount Vernon
Perry
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PostThu Jul 12, 2012 9:55 pm 
July 6th I started a 4 day leisurely hike on the upper Dungeness River. I took 3 of my packgoats: Chelan, Zermatt, and Hershey. Friday we went first to Camp Handy, then continued up the trail about 1/3 mile to the junction with the trail to Boulder shelter & Marmot pass. That section of trail gains about 200 ft. We continued on the upper Dungeness trail, which traverses back down toward the river, and is the much less used trail. This section of trail goes through a couple nice grassy meadows. 1 ¾ miles from the junction is a log bridge going across the Dungeness River to the west side. It’s a medium sized log. The goats with their panniers are fairly wide. The railing support posts were close enough to the log that I needed to take the panniers off the goats. I then led the goats across the bridge and carried the gear across & put it back on them.
upper log bridge over Dungeness
upper log bridge over Dungeness
We continued up Heather Creek to the Park boundary, where there is a view up the valley. It’s fairly open avalanche area with willow brush, some meadow areas, and scattered trees. We turned around at that point and went back down to a nice camp spot in the mossy woods by the Dungeness. This trail seems to get less use the further you go. Saturday we re-crossed the log bridge going over the Dungeness and returned to the Boulder shelter & Marmot pass junction. There we headed up toward Boulder shelter. This is well graded & maintained, climbing steadily to the shelter, gaining 1800 ft. Besides a camp spot at the shelter, there are a couple camp spots in the small meadow by the trail. We took a lunch break there, then continued a short distance on the trail signed for Home Lake.
lunch break
lunch break
About 1/10 mile from Boulder Shelter is the junction with the Charlia Lakes way trail. This climbs steadily up the ridge. It has a few trees across it, but they were no problem. It was not long before I started running into patches of snow. About ¼ mile from the junction I lost the trail under the snow. There was a fairly open area uphill, so I went that direction, more or less south. When the terrain leveled off I continued in the general direction of the trail and soon spotted it again. I followed it for a ways, then lost in again under continuous snow. I continued south to a small snow melt pond/tarn. From that area I could look up the ridge to the notch the trail goes to, heading for the Charlia lakes. Given the amount of snow I’d been traveling through, I assumed there would be lots of snow on the other side, so decided to turn around and head back down to Boulder shelter area, where we camped for the evening.
Charlia way trail
Charlia way trail
pond on Charlia way trail
pond on Charlia way trail
checking out Boulder shelter
checking out Boulder shelter
Sunday we headed up toward Marmot pass. This is again a good trail. About 1 mile from Boulder Shelter there was a large snow drift on the north side of the ridge. I found a way across it, and soon some more snow patches. About ¼ mile further was a second large snow drift. This one appeared to be much steeper, dropping quite a long ways down into the valley. At that point I decided to head west, up to the ridge line, which was about 400 ft above. It was fairly easy going, crossing only one very small snow patch. I got to the ridgeline at about 6300 ft and headed north down the ridge to Marmot pass. There was a fair amount of snow on the west side of the ridge, but travel was not difficult. Looking back, I suspect it would have been easier just to head up to the ridge from the first large snow drift that I’d come to.
looking back at first snow drift
looking back at first snow drift
From past experience I knew that the trail from Marmot Pass to Tubal Cain also would hit a steep snow drift on the north side of the west shoulder of Buckhorn. So we took the climbers trail up Buckhorn to where it levels out at about 6800 ft. From there we headed down the open slopes to the north, picking up the official trail lower down the ridge. The lower section of trail along the ridge had some large snow patches, but they were easy to cross. Sunday night we found a nice place to camp near were the trail started to head down toward Tubal Cain.
looking south toward Marmot Pass
looking south toward Marmot Pass
looking north from Buckhorn shoulder
looking north from Buckhorn shoulder
looking south toward Buckhorn
looking south toward Buckhorn
Monday was a pleasant hike down through the meadows to the crossing of Copper Creek. The meadows had some wildflowers, but not nearly as many as when we were here last year. Perhaps still early? The trail down Copper Creek goes through a couple miles of Rhododendrons in bloom.
The 4 mile road walk from the Tubal Cain parking lot back to the upper Dungeness parking lot got a little long, but otherwise it was a great hike.

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ranger rock
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Joined: 14 Dec 2011
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ranger rock
One of the boys
PostThu Jul 12, 2012 10:39 pm 
Nice TR, it looks like buckhorn is snow free to the summit.

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silence
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PostFri Jul 13, 2012 6:58 am 
wow .. what a load .. do you have to carry food for the goats? how do you keep them from eating stuff like heather along the way? what are panniers? what about animal encounters .. like mountain goats? and bear?
lunch break
lunch break
do you carry a lot of camera gear? your photos are exceptional .. this one is awesome
thx for the great report! up.gif btw when we went up the heather creek trail a couple of years ago .. before they cleaned up the trail (some serious avy debris to get thru) and fixed the bridges .. this was only a log with a rope stretched across ..the whole set up looked too scary for me so i just forded .. but robert took the log .. it ended up being very precarious .. since the rope ended up having a lot of slack esp in the middle (too late to turn around by then) .. anyhow nice to see they put in a handrail
upper log bridge over Dungeness
upper log bridge over Dungeness

PHOTOS FILMS Keep a good head and always carry a light bulb. – Bob Dylan
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bobbi
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Joined: 13 Jul 2006
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bobbi
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PostFri Jul 13, 2012 7:07 am 
Zermatt was at Marmot Pass? sorry i missed him! i was there last wednesday! hi Zermatt wave.gif what a great route! up.gif "Looking back, I suspect it would have been easier just to head up to the ridge from the first large snow drift that I’d come to." my legs would be crying! bawl.gif i too love your photos but my favorite is this gem

bobbi ૐ "Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So…get on your way!" - Oh, the Places You’ll Go! By Dr. Seuss
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RodF
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RodF
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PostFri Jul 13, 2012 7:58 am 
Hi, Perry! Silence, the log Robert took across Heather Creek is the lower log in Perry's photo. We installed the new footlog above it, and it embodies a part of Olympics history - it's actually a white pine from the ghost forest on the hillside south of the crossing, many still standing as snags since blister rust arrived in the Olympics, swept through in the 1940s and killed all the mature white pine. This was part of two WTA work parties led by Mace in 2009-10 to reopen the trail for the first time in ~15 years.

"of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt" - John Muir "the wild is not the opposite of cultivated. It is the opposite of the captivated” - Vandana Shiva
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tigermn
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PostFri Jul 13, 2012 8:03 am 
Thanks for the report. Always enjoy your reports with the goats. Also for some of the information up those trails. I've never probed up there but was trying to figure out a good day hike option from the Upper Dungeness trailhead. Whether to go up Heather, towards Boulder Shelter or some combination in between or even a different way up to Marmot Pass. Sounds like still some snow on that route.

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Perry
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Location: Mount Vernon
Perry
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PostFri Jul 13, 2012 9:19 am 
Silence, the goats do carry some nice comforts for me like: a thick Exped sleeping pad, 2 person tent and a camp stool. To some extent the loads just look bulky, for example I don’t compress my sleeping bag much. The goats don’t eat much. I do often have them carry a small amount of pelleted feed. Mostly, they just browse on grass & brush…sort of like a deer walking through. “panniers” is simply a name for the saddle bags the goats carry. They just hang from the cross-buck saddle. I’ve never had a problem with mountain goats or bears. I’ve had mountain goats approach within about 100 ft a couple of times. Hi Rod, thanks for the history; and all the trail work that your crew does.

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