[pula58]

To get to Curry gap, which way is nicest and why? Thanks!

[Kim Brown]

Both have merit. From Cadet Creek, you have some open areas (it was logged) with nice views. From Quartz Creek you have virgin old growth forest right off the bat. I would gladly go either way again, but for a preference with no other consideration, I'd say Quartz because of the virgin old growth, which really sends me. But if coming out on a Sunday in summer, then go Cadet because of traffic. This is of absolutely no help, I'm sure.

[Nancyann]

That’s a tough question! The brush along the Cadet Creek Trail is shoulder high, but there are nice close-up views of Sloan, Monte Cristo and the Columbia Glacier. There are no difficult creek crossings either. Quartz Creek does not offer much in the way of views until you get close to the end, and there is one waterfall crossing which might get your boots wet, but it has less brushy spots and some beautiful old growth. It might be a shorter drive, depending on where you live. The elevation gain is relatively mellow for both of them.

[Kim Brown]

Ah, Cadet Creek, not Sloan. sorry. Fixed it

[Nancyann]

I agree with Kim for sure on your exit day. If you are coming out on Sunday, do not go on Highway 2!

[pula58]

Thanks for the info everyone! Regarding SR 2: We have had to suck-it-up and sit in traffic between Index and Sultan many a time. Wonder if that traffic problem will ever be remedied?

[Chief Joseph]

[iron]

quartz https://www.nwhikers.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8001925

[Sky Hiker]

[Bruce Albert]

I confess I've only ever done the Quartz Creek approach because I live on "this" side, but Quartz Creek to Curry Gap features great mushrooming, big timber, year round water at multiple locations, the Hawaii Pools, one big-ass war horse of an Alaska Yellow Cedar, and is on my every year more than once list, or was anyhow before I started getting feeble. It gains, I think 1,400' in 4 miles, so never steep. Uncrowded, as in sometimes I encounter another party, but I don't think I recall encountering two other parties. There are three or four brushy clearings which can be kind of grown up but are easily traversed. All in all just a sweet stroll in the woods. Cadet Creek could be just as nice, or nicer, or less nice, but I never wanted to drive all the way around and so I can't speak to that (or really answer your question). Bees and bears in season, natch, but it ain't Woodland Park. Curry Gap was supposedly named for a miner who would walk from the Monte Cristo Mines on weekends to visit a woman in Skykomish with whom he was in love. Probably partly or fully apocryphal, but every time I go I wind up thinking about how much he must have liked that gal.

[Kim Brown]

bruce, you may be able to answer this: Why wasn't Quartz Creek or West Cady and the forest around the last mile of the N Fk Sky road (now closed) ever logged? Wilderness came later (1984 for Henry M./Quartz Creek and 2008 for portions of N Fk Sky & West Cady); this could have been logged before then.

[Bruce Albert]

I imagine when that last bit of road was built in the 70's they had their eye firmly on the vast stands of massive Douglas Fir and Cedar along the lower slopes of West Cady Ridge. There was a fork constructed at the very end by the trailhead that looks like there was very much to be a bridge there and continuation of the road on the other side. I don't know why they stopped, except that it coincided in time with the general halting of old growth harvest in general...about the time when logging in Western Washington collapsed for a bit. There were some environmental decisions in there, spotted owl habitat and so forth, and requirements to preserve the LSR that changed the rules. There were a couple of salvage sales along that last mile of ROW in the early nineties, then nothing. Maintenance, even very simple maintenance of water bars and such, on that last mile ceased several years before the Wild Sky sucked it in. The road got rougher and rougher and finally the 2006 flood took it to impassability. No big deal I guess, except I hate road walks, and a couple of favorite day trips got about 3 miles longer. So it goes.

[Kim Brown]

Well, and too, Wild Sky was a concept for the 1984 Wilderness Act, and if an area was under consideration for wilderness, it is to be treated as wilderness until the decision. I know there were tremendous races to get the cut out; odd this wasn't among those areas cut - the giant trees are right there. A logger wouldn't even have to get out of the truck to cut 'em; just lean out the window with a saw (I know of at least one illegal cut; Coulter Creek, set aside for wilderness consideration was cut and a lawsuit ensued; I'll have to re-read up on that one; surely there were more) I drove to the N Fk Sky trailhead in 1999 and it was horrendous then. The road walk isn't that bad, considering. The first time I walked it after it closed, it was awful. The alder was encroaching into the corridor and it was hot, suffocating, and gross. Two years ago it was OK, and last year it was OK. Trail crew are maintaining the corridor and alder was cut back, and native plants were actually growing in. It was almost pleasant as far as road walks go. It's still not great, but far better than when it was first closed. It one of those road walks that slap you in the face with what a road does in the forest; while on the road, you bake and you're hot; within seconds of stepping onto the trail, the actual trail, it's 10 degrees cooler. Within 2 minutes, it's even cooler, and you can hear birds. Within 5 minutes, the road is out of your head and you can smell the yellow-cedar, well before you see them. But you already know all this. N Fk Sky and Quartz Creek trails roll through among the most stupendous old growth forests. Thanks for the insight.