North Cascades National Park

Sept 1998

The second day took us into the large meadow below Park Creek Pass, where we soon crossed paths with a rather large brown-coated bear, who passed a few yards in front of us through heavy meadow brush. It was difficult to see anything but his back, but he (she) was likely a blondhaired black bear. The colors in the meadow were still those of green summer, but some hints of autumn red were beginning to show. In this meadow you get good views of Goode Mountain, Mt Booker, and Mt Buckner. The climb to the 6000-ft pass was not difficult.

The wind at the rocky pass was quite strong, not uncommon for high Washington passes which straddle the east side and the west. Washington State can experience very hot weather in the summer, especially in the high desert country east of the Cascade Range. As the desert heats up, the hot air rises. Cooler and denser marine air from west of the Cascades rushes in to fill the void which can create extraordinary windy conditions at high elevation passes.

The trip from Park Creek Pass to the trailhead at Lake Diablo is mostly down hill and quite long, about 18 miles I believe. We spent Sunday night in one of the two campsites in upper Thunder Basin. This was a typical backcountry campsite.

The descent to the third night's (Monday) campsite was through a terrific, old-growth forest of firs (?) -- I confess, I don't know my evergreens well. One thing I remember most obout these forests were the long gray-yellow-green strands of moss hanging from the green-black tree branches. In the forest we encountered mining equipment rusting away from years of abandonment and severe winters.

Monday's campsite was at Junction Campground, a wide large open campground in the forest with peekaboo views out to Tricouni and Kalawatti Peaks and their copious, glistening glaciers. It is one of the most pleasant backcountry campgrounds I've stayed in to this day.

The last day out was a long deep forest walk down to Lake Diablo.

Unfortunately, my camera lens (unknown to me at the time) was broken, so the photos are mostly out of focus. But they give an idea of the surrounding mountains. Also, unfortunate, the slides from the last portion of the trip have been misplaced. This was largely the forested portion of the trail beyond and below upper Thunder Basin.

The hike is not particularly tough, but it is long from end to end. It just takes a little longer than many others in the park due to its length.

This remoteness is one of the reasons we waited so long to take this trip. It had been on our minds for years, but the logistics required dropping off a car at a location along Highway 20, then driving to Chelan, Washington in another vehicle, riding a 50 mile ferry to Stehikan, Hopping the shuttle bus to the Park Creek trailhead, hiking for several days, then returning hundreds of miles in a loop trip to retrieve the car left at Chelan. And finally, driving more than a hundred miles back to our homes in Seattle. All fun stuff in and of itself, but a whole lot of driving over an extended weekend. It turned us off from this hike for years.

The solution to the difficult logisitics came at the suggestion of a friend who was taking flying lessons at the time. He suggested we hire a pilot to ferry us from Lake Union in downtown Seattle to Stehikan on the northeastern shore of Lake Chelan in a 50’s vintage deHaviland Beaver float plane (much like one sees on the label of a bottle of Alaskan ESB Bitter Ale). And this turned out to be a terrific idea.

Earlier in the week before the hike, two friends placed a 70's-era Country Squire wagon at the Colonial Creek trailhead parking lot to get us home after our hike.

On a sunny Friday afternoon, our chartered sea plane lifted off of Lake Union near downtown Seattle, flew over I-5 jammed with holiday travellers, and flew past 10,000-ft Glacier Peak, low enough to cut through a large pass on the volcano. Soon after passing by Glacier Peak, the pilot had to maneuver into a steep spiraling descent to the lake, since we were at a rather high altitude and it was only a ridge line or two past Glacier. When the plane putt-putted up to the Stehikan docks, we felt like kings for a brief moment while unloading our packs and gear.

That Friday night we check into the Stehiken Ranger Station, got our permits, and set up camp at the campgroound near the station. We then walked into town and ate steaks (or grilled fish for some) in the small restaurant in Stehikan, our last good meal for several days (other than the bacon and eggs breakfast we enjoyed there the next morning). A shuttle bus run by the Park Service out of Stehikan dropped us off at the trail head on Saturday morning shortly after breakfast.

The hike was to take us across Park Creek Pass, from the east side of the Cascade Crest to the west side, terminating near Diablo Lake below Ruth Mountain and Snowfield Peak. This is a rather long hike, about 25-30 miles.