[Chief Joseph]

Headed over the North Cascades for my first trip to Winthrop and the Pasayten Wilderness. On the way we encountered a rare sighting....

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I kept thinking, looking at the east side scenery, this is nice "over on the dry side".....especially after my last outing to the Western Cascades rain forest @ Ashland lakes. We drove over on 10-10-13 and spent the night car camped at the Crystal lake TH. We were packing up the next morning when a ranger truck drove in. We were like Uh-O, we could be in trouble! lol....the only closed sign we saw was on the back side of the outhouse, not visible driving in. She turned out to be super nice, informed us that even though the outhouse was technically closed, we could still use it since they had no way to lock it. I was relieved since I thought I had broken 2 laws, using a closed outhouse that was also signed "women". She said she had been the lead Wilderness Ranger in the area for 15 years and gave us great info on the area and future hiking destinations. So awesome encountering a back country Ranger who was so friendly and informative! It was my first hike into a forest ravaged by a wildfire (2002) and as others have said, it was strange and sad but also cool to see the forest rebuilding itself.

closeed

rut row!

crick below CL TH.

ditto

So we headed up the lake-creek road to the Black lake TH

ya baby!.....Mt Hardware coat from Opus rocked!

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don't poke me!

blackened

lake

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nice trail

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So we left the lake and the awesome campsite and headed up trail where we encountered burnt blow down after burnt blow down for nearly 2 miles until we came to a long unused campsite by a very nice waterfall....

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my tent site

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find the hidden tent

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FIRE!

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gettin' sideways!

burnt leaners w/mts

crispy!

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black lake

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Then we headed home, stopping at the Wa pass lookout for views and pics.....

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Awesome trip! PS, lots of hunters around, so wear some bright colors!

[Kim Brown]

Wow, what an interesting and awesome choice for a fall color trip! Janet & I did Black Lake not too long after the Lake Creek fire and had a lot of trouble getting around blowdown. It wasn't the prettiest lake we had ever seen, but it was a real nice trail (logged out to the lake, but we couldn't get past the last campsite). Lovely colors!

[Chief Joseph]

Thanks Kim, yea, gnome knows some cool places. There are about 3-4 sketchy places before Black Lake, but they have detours around now, and not much elevation gain with good terrain....beyond that you might need long legs.

lone larch upon burned out ridge.

[GeoHiker]

Great report. Did you fish? I've been wanting to get over that way before the snow flies and check out the lakes above Black, but looks like I'm not going to pull that off this year. Did you check out any of the camping spots along the Chewuch R.? I did a quicky weekend trip in that area late June expecting it to be mobbed and I was shocked by how few people were in the area. It's one of the most popular deer hunting areas in the State or used to be. I don't know how the fires have affected the deer population, but would think it's doing well with all the new browse and open country now. That's serious horse country, so they do an excellent job taking care of the roads/trails with some of the nicest dispersed camping in the State. Thanks for getting the wheels turning, maybe I could sneak in one more trip before NCH gets socked in. The 10 day forecast looks awesome and I haven't done a dedicated Fall color trip yet and bagged my limit of larches.....

[touron]

Nice!

[MLHSN]

Did you make it up to fawn lake? I've never climbed over so many logs in all my life. Curious how the fishing is. The lake was finally frozen when I made it there.

[Chief Joseph]

[Marshall_Dylan]

Some of the highlights of the trip are Forest Gnome falling in the creek, Old School house brewery in Winthrop, and hitting Bambi on the way over. Hunters and deer everywhere, be prepared to share the wilderness and bring orange.

CJ, FG, AD

Washington Pass Overlook

Washington Pass Overlook

Washington Pass Overlook

NCH

Look!