[Justus S.]

Trinity to Cleator Mtn Aug 11-13th Took my older brother on a nice 3day backpack up to the Buck Ck Pass area. The plan was to hike up Helmet, Flower Dome, and the peaks up to Cleator. We got a late start Thursday around 10:30. It was already getting warm. As we headed up hikers heading out informed us of a lightning fire started in the middle of the night. It was right near the Buck Ck Pass meadows. Sounded a bit scary if you were camped nearby. We pushed on anyway, and hoped it wouldn’t be an issue for us. It was hot, and we moved slow under heavy packs. The good thing is there is water every so often. As we headed up we eventually could get a good look at the fire. It looked small and the smoke was basically blowing north. However, about a mile before the turn off for Fortress it really started to flare up and smoke, but it did die quite quickly after. We had planned to camp before Buck Pass so that was good. We could at least monitor the fire across the way and make plans for the next day. We settled into camp and that evening hiked up to Pass No Pass. I had planned to hike up Helmet Butte but was too tired. On the fire front, the wind had changed direction in the evening now blowing fire smoke down Buck Ck. as evening progressed it calmed down with just one more small flare up.

Our plans for the next day were to move to a high camp enroute to High Pass to catch the morning sunrise on Glacier Peak Saturday morning. However, with the fire we opted to stay put and just day hike to over to Cleator. We could then monitor the fire and get out quickly if it blew up. Friday, dawned perfectly and we would spend the next 10hrs hiking out to Cleator and back. We also hiked up Rally Cap and Liberty Cap. We decided to skip Flower Dome. It was a beautiful day. We had about 10mins of light smoke near the pass on the way up then the rest of the day was wonderful. The fire stayed very calm while we were out hiking and produced very little smoke. This was great for the views.

Saturday, morning clouds swirled over the peaks, and it was probably a good thing we hadn’t camped high since it took several hours for them to clear out. We packed up and hiked out. We wandered around a bit in the lower Buck Ck looking at the old growth. In the burn area we took a break to try and see the humming birds. They are so fast. Overall, it was a really nice trip. Notes: Bugs still annoying, Flies, Horseflies, some Mosquitoes. Plenty of water sources. Flowers appear to be at peak. Hike over to Cleator had just a few easy snowfields you could easily go around. Hopefully, the Fire will burn out.

[contour5]

Really nice photos!