[Hulksmash]

Since the Suiattle River road reopened i've been making regular visits up the Suiattle river trail. Well ok i was a frequent user before the road reopened. If your out for more than a day hike there is plenty of opportunity to disperse and find solitude. Before the road reopened virtually anyone back there was prepared. Now well...not so much. Ive bumped into a few day hikers claiming to be on a trip up to Gamma Hot springs. When questioned if they have a map or GPS, or what they think "unmaintained" trail means. The answer ends up well we figured we wold follow the trail. What do you mean by maintained trail? To be fair i rarely look at my GPS when hiking on a trail. Usually that's just to check the time. I don't look at my map that often hiking on a trail. There is a trail it's not hard to figure out. Also i'v spent enough time volunteering on trail crews to come to the understanding that the majority of hikers don't understand that the trail they are walking on was created when people walked out into the woods with saws and loppers, and digging tools to clear a path and excavate a flat spot to walk on. Nor is there much understanding that they need to be regularly maintained or mother nature takes it back. Despite the Gamma Ridge trail being in the USFS inventory on USGS,Green trails maps...and being listed in the Mount Baker Snoqualmie National Forest Web site, there is a virtual black hole of any useful information in Google land. Now it may irritate some as this may be their sekrit destination.....It's on the map how sekrit can it be. So on July 3rd i began strolling down the Suiattle River trail up the the Junction of the Pacific Crest trail which is now about 3 tenths of a mile from the Suspension bridge over Canyon Creek. Pay attention! if you actually have a map with you and look at it you might get confused. Yes i've seen this happen here. The PCT was rerouted. Anyway i turned south bound on the PCT crossed the Suiattle on the band spanking new bridge, and traveled the 3.5 ish miles to the intersection at Vista Creek. I forded Vista Creek to (there is a butt scooting log, but it was hot and the fore was refreshing) reach the upper Suiattle river trail. There is a camp site with privy across the creek. I chose not to camp here since i considered the water in Vista Creek untreatable. It is currently running in low intensity lahar....it is full of glacial dirt. Instead i moved on up the trail to camp along Gamma Creek. The water is not full of volcanic vomit stirred up by glaciers. Now if you chose to take this route...realize that this WAS the PCT before the reroute. Before the flood of 2003 this would have been a well maintained trail. Now the huckleberry is encroaching, and blow downs are frequent. But it's still easy to follow, i would just not care to walk through it when wet. After i decent nights sleep along Gama creek i head up trail once again the morning of July 4th. In half an hour i was at the intersection of Upper Suiattle and Gamma ridge. Now here is where things start to deteriorate some more, the Hucklebery is generally shoulder high, is spots its over head height. Blowdowns are more densely spaced....but the moss in the tread is trampled and not growing so well where the tread is because people have been walking on it. The slope is gentle here. There are camp sites at the near the "x" next to the 3400 foot elevation contour on the USGS map. Water is available here. There are also some camps sites amongst a bunch of snags. Snags can fall without warning with changes of humidity and the absence of wind. Tank up on water because there will not be opportunity for water for a while. From the 3400 foot contour the trail is excavated into the steep hill side to about the 4500 foot contour line. It is less brushy the tread is easy to find, but if there was an Olympic event for tree hurtling this would be the obstacle course. If you've made it this far Congradualtions you've reached the blowdown hoedown! The grade levels off, but blowdowns are brush are thick. After the 4500 feet elevation forget a trail ever existed! Blowdowns are thick up till 5000 feet elevation.

Yep that's the trail ^ 5000 feet to about 5300 feet is open forest, very little tread remains. After 5300 feet the grade steepens and the tread become visible. At 5450 the meadows begin, and a camp site is here. There is a spring nearby but it's down to a dribble. Travel is easy with an intermittent climbers boot path all the way to Gamma Peak. Eye candy.

While on Gamma Peak i searched for a summit register, did not find one. There are snow patches below Gamma Peak, there is no easily accessible running water. The morning of July 5th i woke early to Marmonts whistling. So i packed up and headed out. I packed lean for this trip, i found i was using up my supply of calories faster than planned. So instead of going minimal on food to stay an extra day, i managed to hike out in a day.

[GaliWalker]

Stunning views. Even the blowdown section looks pretty in the photos.

[D. Inscho]

Looks beautiful, and lonely; I like....

[Redwic]

Great TR. It is nice to see the conditions of the old route.

[Distel32]

[Manja]

Well done. Good details and photos.

[RichP]

Nice, Hulk. That area sees few bipeds for sure.

[kite]

[JVesquire]

Very impressive! I had wondered what the FS site meant by "countless" blowdowns.

[Stefan]

wow. thank you for all that beta. mucho appreciated.

[Chief Joseph]

Really nice photos! Your TR makes me wonder if Just some Hiker might do this as a dayhike?

[JVesquire]

So, was the trail totally demolished after 4500 feet? It looks like from there where the trail flattens out, the ridge is a straight shot south, so you could pretty "easily" abandon the trail and follow your compass. Or, is it trickier to stay on route? This has my interest up in getting up there.

[Gimpilator]

Now there's one you don't see every day. Very cool!

[Fletcher]

That looks like a cool trip!

[Tangeman]

Spectacular!