[Schroder]

The North Fork Sauk Road (49) opened last Friday so Hanzsek suggested we head over to Lake Byrne for a few classic photos of Glacier Peak. Since it's been a couple of years since this trail has seen many people, we decided to allow 3 days - camp near Sunup Lake the first night, the second at Byrne & the third day back out. I didn't expect this to be an epic hike. We got a reasonably early start at 8:30 and from the looks of the trailhead, it was a good thing. It was pretty brushy in the flat area but as soon as we hit the slope the brush disappeared and the trail looked in good shape. The first mile went pretty fast until we hit the first giant blowdown. There didn't seem to be an easy way around it so we ended up pushing our packs underneath it and crawling through.

Trailhead

First blowdown

At 3000 feet, we hit a large field of blowdowns and lost the trail. We climbed over one tree and picked up a tread that continued, but it was overgrown and looked much too old to be the trail. We backtracked and went uphill from the last blowdown and found that several had come down over several switchbacks and we finally picked up the trail again a bit higher. Once through this, it was pretty easy going up to Bingley Gap with many step-over blowdowns. We stopped for lunch just above Bingley & enjoyed our first view of Mt Pugh and Whitechuck. A bit further up the trail we caught our first view eastward toward Red & Black Mountains on the other side of Lost Creek.

Pugh

Red & Black Mountains

We hit our first snow just before the Round Lake saddle and then had to descend the meadow a bit to get back on the trail. It didn't last long, though, before we were back in snow.

Round Lake

Heading down from Round Lake cutoff

Sloan & Bedal Peaks

there's the trail!

first glimpse of Glacier Peak

Crossing over the next shoulder, we caught our first view of Glacier Peak. As we were standing ther admiring the view, a very large dead tree standing nearby suddenly came crashing to the ground. There was no wind & it was standing up straight before it fell, so it was quite startling. We continued on to Sunup Lake, following under a rock band and then up the drainage to the still snowed-in lake.

Kyes, Monte Cristo, Cadet, Sloan

Sunup Lake

We explored the basin a bit looking for any bare ground and finally just set up on a flat spot of snow above the east side of the lake. We had a liesurely dinner & then talked about going up Breccia Peak, but finally decided to rest & take a few photos above the lake. We still had a lot of ground to cover the next day.

North Fork Sauk Valley

camp above Sunup Lake

view from camp

Glacier to Red Mountain pan

Kololo to Red

Glacier Peak

Glacier to Red Mountain pan

tomorrow's terrain

Glacier sunset

Pugh sunset

Pugh & Three Fingers

view west

Del Campo to Hall Peak

Addison Ridge, Bedal, Del Campo, Morning Star

Pugh & Three Fingers

Morning Star, Sperry, Vesper, Big Four

pan south

The next morning we awoke to clear, warm weather so we packed up & got moving fairly quickly. We tried to traverse from our camp into the large basin to the east, but ran into a band of cliffs that forced us to descend the way we had come up to the lake.

Morning Star, Sperry, Vesper

Del Campo, Morning Star

Sloan & Bedal in the morning

descending from Sunup Lake

We picked up a few bare spots of trail going through the trees so we knew we were on the route. Exiting the trees into the large basin, we made our second mistake and made a climbing traverse, which ended up on a dead-end ledge between two cliffs. After more backtracking and descending, we found a piece of trail leading us to snow in the next drainage. We knew we had to ascend to 5800 feet here, so once we did and traversed farther east, we came to a steep, snow-free meadow with no sign of the trail and not very friendly terrain ahead. We backtracked again, found a piece of trail in some trees, and followed a steep snow ramp downward to a waterfall where we could see another piece of trail. Once again in the trees, we could pick up faint pieces of the trail between snowfields.

traversing the first basin

traversing the first basin

that's the trail

We finally hit a very large meadow and followed the trail until it disappeared at the top of Point 5923. We had cliffs on all sides except the way we came up. The map showed the trail descending northward off the west side of this peak, but all we saw was near-vertical rock. We sat down here for a while and looked at the route ahead of us.

the meadow

Monte Cristo group, Sloan, Bedal

Point 5923

view north

Dome Peak

Glacier from Pt 5923

Glacier from Pt 5923

It was 1 pm at this point, so we realize we probably weren't going to make it to Byrne. We backtracked down the ridge to the large saddle west of 5923 and saw the only feasible route onward - down a very steep snowfield above Fern Creek. We decided to bag it and head back and hit Breccia or some other high points.

back at the meadow

We traversed the meadow and the snowfield west of it and I was just stepping off the bright snow into the dark woods and brush when I slipped in some steep mud. One leg flew out in front of me and the other bent underneath and I landed with my butt full-force on the back of my heel. I felt my knee immediately go numb. I sat a few minutes recovering from the shock and then felt like the damage wasn't bad and I could continue on. We got back to the snow ramp by the waterfall and it looked like as good a place as any to stop for the night. We set up camp just south of Point 6343 (where the radio repeater is) & I iced my knee.

second camp

Kyes, Monte Cristo, Cadet

Black Mountain

I slept well & had no pain during the night so I was confident in the morning that I didn't do much damage - until I sat up on my knees in the tent. I had excruciating pain. I slid out of the tent and got to my feet and realized I would be going no further. Chris and I talked over our plan - he would head down and call Search and Rescue from Verlot and give them my GPS coordinates. I would ration out my food for possibly another day out there. Chris headed out at 8:30.

Sloan in the morning

last view of Chris

I hobbled around a bit and did about the only thing I could do - stare at the clouds boiling around Sloan Peak. By 11 am, I was in a whiteout and wasn't very optimistic.

cloud watching

cloud watching

clouds hammering Sloan

At about 1pm, the sun came out in a patch around me and I could see part way up the valley. I decided to relax and take a nap. At 3:30, I could hear the sound of the rotors below me. The clouds were rolling in and out so I knew I would be difficult to spot. The helo flew by about a quarter mile west of me then disappeared. I didn't hear anything more for the next hour.

Sloan into view briefly

Sloan

At about 4:45, I heard the helo slowly climbing out of the Sauk River Valley toward me and suddenly they were in front of me and waved. They made a quick turn, lowered a rescuer down to me and then he placed me in a body harness and they winched me up. The clouds rolled in again, so the rescuer, with my pack in hand, had to climb the snow ramp by the waterfall to get to a clear spot where he was winched up. Then we headed for Darrington for fuel and then home.

help's finally here

rescue 1

rescue 2

rescue 3

rescue 4

rescue 5

rescue 6

If you're going to Lost Creek Ridge, wait until September. Here's a video taken from a fixed camera inside the helo. What you're hearing is the crew chief giving instructions to the pilot as he lowers the hook down to me and then raises me. He's also keeping a close eye on the clouds moving in and after I'm aboard they have to leave the rescuer below to move to a higher clear spot. The rescuer grabbed my pack and climbed up to meet them a few minutes later. LostCkRdg from Randy Schroder on Vimeo.

[JimK]

I'm glad to see you are home writing this report. I hope all turned out okay. By the way, some very nice photos.

[contour5]

Yikes. "Last view of Chris" is one ominous title... The pictures are about 256 million shades of awesome. Hope Chris is ok...

[silence]

OMG! .. what the heck happened??? i hope chris is ok .. send him our best ..

[Schroder]

Narrative added. Chris made it down in blazing speed, otherwise I'd still be sitting in the clouds up there.

[silence]

so glad you made it out ok .. was it a break or a sprain?

[Schroder]

Something like a torn meniscus, from my own diagnosis. I declined going to the E.R. so I'm going to try to see a orthopedist next week.

[silence]

i feel your pain .. and understand about the er .. rest .. do you want the name of a good orthopedic surgeon?

[touron]

Wishing you a speedy recovery.

[the Zachster]

Yikes! I saw your report before you added the narrative...it wasn't what I expected! Sounds like a bum accident that could happen to any of us at any time. I'm really glad this had a safe outcome. Hope the knee recovers quick. And despite the wild ending and some really challenging navigation, you got some great pics! Thanks for sharing your story.

[Jim Dockery]

Dang, could'a been me on Broken Top a couple weeks ago. !@#$ happens to the best of us . Glad you got out ok, good luck with the recovery. Great pics btw .

[David¹]

Lost Creek Ridge strikes again! That trail is much tougher than it first appears, glad everything worked out in the end. SAR

[Backpacker Joe]

Im so glad you made it out of there Schroder. I certainly hope that youll heal up quickly. Good luck with that.

[Popcorn]

So glad you made it back in one piece, Shroder. What horrible luck. Haven't been up to Lake Byrne in decades--used to be accessible via Kennedy Hot Springs, of course, but...BTW, is the old Whitechuck road open to bicycles? Quark used to update the group, but I haven't seen one her Whitechuck road updates in a while.

[Hanzsek]

Never having been involved in a rescue situation before, I didn't know exactly what to expect. What I witnessed was impressive. Everyone involved was courteous, skilled and professional - the rangers at the Verlot RS, Snohomish County SAR director Glenn Bergstrom, and of course, the helicopter crew. My sincere thanks to all.