This Memorial Day Weekend marked our one-year backpacking anniversary. Last year, we spent two nights on the Olympic coast. This year, while we were tempted to try something similar, a quick filter of our newly created and creatively named “Hikes We Want To Do” spreadsheet sent the Thunder Creek trail in North Cascades National Park to the top of our list. Early season accessibility and the meager elevation gain and distance conducive to a first-of-the-season backpack will tend to do that. I penciled it in my calendar several weeks ago, and there it stayed.

Tricouni Peak as viewed from Junction Camp.

We left the house at 05:20, after oversleeping fifteen minutes and scrambling some eggs. Since we’d be spending the night–two, actually–within the National Park, we had to stop at the ranger station in Marblemount to pick up our permits. At 07:15 we pulled up to the ranger station and got in line behind the several parties that had arrived before us. (The ranger station opened at 07:00.) Their destinations were varied, but there was a common answer to one of the ranger’s questions: Subaru. The repetition became quite comical by the end of the line. We were the end of the line.

I’d read somewhere on NWHikers that Tricouni Camp was nice, and when the ranger said there were only two sites at that camp, I was sold. It also helped that the camp is ~7.7 miles in (according to Green Trails Map #48) and just before the most significant elevation gain of the entire trail. The ranger warned us of pesky deer, issued our permit, and we were back on the road.

At 08:10, we pulled into the trailhead at the south end of Colonial Creek Campground and hit the trail fifteen minutes later. Last year, we spent the night at the campground and went for an ill-fated day hike up to Fourth of July Pass. The first ~1.5 miles of that hike and this backpack are both along the Thunder Creek trail, so we had an idea what to expect, and I won’t elaborate on what I’ve basically written before.

Just across the bridge that takes you to the east side of Thunder Creek, we saw a cute little red-headed woodpecker, but much of the beginning of the hike was uneventful. At 09:14 we reached the Fourth of July trail intersection, at 09:43 we crossed a small bridge over a stream, and at 10:20 we stopped and sat on a small rock with views across the valley to Snowfield Peak. At 4.3 miles long, the section of the trail from Neve Camp to McAllister Camp doesn’t offer much variety, but does offer plenty of gentle ups-and-downs, small stream crossings, time for introspection, and small glimpses up-valley.

Sporadic views uptrail toward Tricouni and Primus Peaks.

At 11:45 we reached McAllister Horse Camp, ~6.4 miles from the trailhead. We stopped off to make use of the facilities, and sat down for another snack. Thunder Creek here makes a big bend, and much of the eastern bank has been washed away into a large bluff.

In between McAllister Horse Camp and the trail to McAllister Camp proper, there is a small stream crossing that offers no rocks to hop. There’s a large log to cross, but it’s far from level and does splinter off at one end, making it notable, at least. On the way back, Nicole elected to take off her boots and socks and get wet.

In just a few minutes more, the trail leaves the Ross Lake National Recreation Area and crosses into the North Cascades National Park. I always just refer to the entire area as the North Cascades National Park, but there is a difference, I suppose. Anyway, it was shortly after this marker that we came around a corner and I saw a bear ahead and off to the left of the trail. “Bear!” I said, instinctively. “What?” Nicole asked from behind me. “Bear; come here!” I just wanted her to see the bear before, I assumed, it would run off. This was our first bear-while-hiking sighting. OK, what do we do now? Let it know we’re here. “HEY BEAR!” I yelled. “GET OUT OF HERE!” The bear looked over at us, dropped off the log it was on, and went back to eating the undergrowth. Hm. What happened to the bear being afraid of us and running away immediately? We stepped back out of sight to wait a few minutes. I changed camera lenses. We walked back up the trail. The bear was still there. I snapped a few quick photos. The bear seemed pretty chill. “ALRIGHT BEAR, WE’RE JUST GOING TO WALK OVER HERE NOW.” We walked on eggshells, but talked big. The bear watched us, but only seemed partially interested in us. The bear was cute.

Bear! No, I will not set up my tripod. No, I will not approach.

Up the trail, I looked over my shoulder, and saw nothing. Just before 13:00, only a few minutes after meeting Mr. Bear, we crossed Fisher Creek and arrived at Tricouni Camp, elevation 2000’. We were still excited from seeing the bear, and we made ourselves busy by setting up camp, getting water, and napping in the warmth of the afternoon. The two sites at Tricouni Camp are set well away from one another, and the Camp itself is quite a ways off the main trail. There was a tent at the far site, but in the two nights there, we never saw anyone else in camp.

Lower Tricouni and waterfall as viewed from Tricouni Camp.

In fact, we didn’t see anyone that entire morning. It was only after we’d returned to Fisher Creek for water that we saw several people, crossing over the bridge above us. We soaked our feet in the freezing water for as long as we could stand it. Since we had no real plans for the afternoon, we were able to enjoy just resting. I took a few pictures of the vicinity–Tricouni Peak towers above, partially obscured by trees; we made dinner early; and were in the tent when dusk drew the mosquitoes out of their hiding places. It should be noted, though, that in general there were no really bothersome bugs. We drifted off to sleep before the stars came out…

Sunday morning we were awake early but stayed within our sleeping bags until ~06:45. The weather was so nice that we left of the rainfly, so when the temps dropped during the night, we did get a little chilly. So did the mosquitoes, though. After breakfast, I loaded up my pack with camera gear, etc., and Nicole took off with just her trekking poles. My plan was to hike up to Junction Camp, ~2.2 miles away and 1100’ higher, and perhaps further, just to see what kind of views we could get up the valley toward Boston Peak, its glacier, and the like.

We left camp at 08:20, and were immediately and unceremoniously introduced to switchbacks, which we hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting the day before. We were quite happy that we hadn’t tried to backpack all the way up to Junction Camp, as this section would’ve been pretty tough on us at the end of the day. The switchbacks did give us the views that we’d been teased with from below. Tricouni Peak is right there. Looking back to the north, you can see Snowfield Peak from time to time.

The elevation gain eases up, and the rush of Fisher Creek is loud off to the left. It looks like there’s a pretty large waterfall down there–I could only make out part of it. The trail through here is beautiful–Nicole’s favorite part of the trip, aside from the bear, of course. The ground is entirely covered by bright green mosses, the trees were allowing in filtered sunlight from the sun rising in the East over Red Mountain, and Nicole was traveling fast and light.

Nicole, stoic as the trees, cool as a cucumber.

Moss in shadow.

By 09:45 we were at Junction Camp, where the views were nice but there were more bugs. The campsites up there weren’t nearly as private as those at Tricouni, and we had to walk between two to use the pit toilet. We continued on for perhaps another quarter of a mile, to where there were views of something up the valley through the branches and the trail dropped away sharply. I didn’t feel like losing 500-1000’ of elevation when I didn’t know if it’d be worth it, so we sat down just after the unmarked junction to the Meadow Cabins, ate some food, and headed back to Junction Camp to snap a few more photos, where we met a couple guys who were camped up there. They were the first people we’d spoken with.

Boston Glacier, maybe? What is that upvalley? Forbidden?

At 11:00, we headed back down to Tricouni, which we arrived at at 12:15. The weather remained perfect, and we took our time tending to things around the camp, as we did the day before.

Again we were in bed early, talking, listening to podcasts aloud because Nicole forgot her book, and enjoying the peace and quiet. We had so much time, but didn’t feel it necessary to do more, which was nice. Again, asleep early.

We broke camp at 06:15 Monday morning; I did so with a slight limp, as the descent the day before with pack and sans trekking poles did a number on my right knee. Such pain at the beginning of the season! At 9:50, we dragged our boots out onto the blacktop of the trailhead parking lot.

On the way home, we stopped off at the Marblemount Diner. We were too early for hamburgers; there was an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet, which we over-indulged in while watching hummingbirds hover on the other side of the window.

All-in-all, a great trip. It surprised me with the amount of solitude–I assumed it’d be busy. It surprised me with views–I expected none. The trail was in perfect shape. And the weather could not be beat. It was a great way to start the summer.

Thunderous moss.

Stats: ~20.4 miles from Colonial Creek Campground to Tricouni Camp to Junction Camp and back, spread over 3 days, with at least 1900’ of elevation gain. This trip made me want a GPS.
Day 1: ~7.7 miles to Tricouni Camp, ~4:30 hiking time, ~800’ gain–plus: ups-and-downs.
Day 2: ~5.0 miles round-trip to past Junction Camp, ~4:00 hiking time, ~1100’ gain/loss.
Day 3: ~7.7 miles out, ~3:35 hiking time, ~800’ loss–plus: ups-and-downs.

As always, more photos at Flickr.

Emboldened by the Explorer’s surprising 20mpg Seattle-to-Aix-and-back performance, and having thoroughly enjoyed WA-410–a road we’d not driven on before–we decided to find a hike in North Cascades National Park for the weekend. This would alleviate the dual shames of having never taken WA-20 (aka North Cascades Highway) past Baker Lake and–the greater sin–having never even entered North Cascades National Park. Hey, we’ve been close…and we’re, you know…and it’s… Gas be damned! We were off early Sunday morning (07:00) after letting our friends’ dogs outside.

Our plan was to pull into the Colonial Creek Campground on Diablo Lake on Sunday morning and set up camp, then head up to Fourth of July Pass and back. We’re currently of the mind that if we’re gonna drive over three hours one-way to hike, we’re gonna turn it into at least a car-camp/day-hike combo, if not a backpack. We even thought–before our first hike, of course–that we might squeeze in two hikes: one Sunday, and one Monday. That didn’t happen.

The drive from Seattle to North Cascades National Park (hereafter, NOCA) via WA-530 (through Darrington) and WA-20 took less than three hours. WA-530 is another road we’ve somehow managed to avoid. Anyone who knows Washington State hiking and is reading this is probably wondering where we have been. Answer: I don’t know, and that’s something we’re working on rectifying. (To further display my ignorance, I’ll say here that I assumed that WA-530 was also the Mountain Loop highway. I started to suspect differently when I saw a sign in Darrington that seemed to contradict me. More on this later.) So: after stopping off for firewood, a corkscrew, two breakfast sandwiches, and an underwhelming stop at the Gorge Lake viewpoint, we were registered at Colonial Creek Campground and setting up our tent at 10:18. Definitely drivable in under three hours; I drive slowly.

Colonial Creek Campground sits right on Diablo Lake, which is a beautiful aquamarine color, on account of its glacial waters. Privacy in the campground ain’t the best–at least if you want to be on the water–but you get flush toilets, fire pits w/ grates, and easy access to the trailhead we planned on using. Definitely a good place for families, and since it was a Sunday, many people were headed out while we were headed in.

We left most of our gear behind, or in the truck, but I insisted on carrying a pack that still had some weight to it–much of it water, we left with 5 liters–ostensibly for training purposes. Nicole had the camera bag and her trekking poles. A few minutes after leaving our campsite, we arrived at the Thunder Creek trailhead at 11:19. We’d be taking the Thunder Creek trail for 2.1 miles, and then turning off and picking up the Fourth of July Pass trail, which would take us up another 2.5 miles to Fourth of July Camp, and perhaps further.

For the first ~1.5 miles, the trail takes you south, along the Thunder Arm of Diablo Lake until it shrinks down to the still formidable Thunder Creek. This portion of the trail is in beautiful condition: wide, level, earthen. You’ll walk among very large trees, the largest of which I’ll hypothesize are cedars. Tree identification: yet another area for improvement. A very pleasurable walk.

Trees along Thunder Creek.

At 12:00 we crossed over the creek and stopped to take a few pictures. Here we saw two other hikers on their way out; we were surprised at the level of solitude on a Sunday in a National Park on a trail so accessible. We’d see more, of course.

Thunder Creek and the view north from the bridge.

Minutes after crossing the bridge, you reach the well-signed intersection of Thunder Creek Trail and Fourth of July Pass Trail. It’s here that the trail starts to gain elevation via a series of moderately steep switchbacks. Views are few at this point, but some do open up within ~30 minutes. We stopped at a spot with good views across to Snowfield Peak at around 12:30 to eat our lunch and apply some sunscreen.

Just a few minutes uphill from there, views open to the north up Thunder Creek and across a just-visible Diablo Lake to a couple snowy peaks that I’m not sure I can identify. We stopped again so I could take a few pictures–time, once again, is not a prioirity–and behind me I hear Nicole say, somewhat surprised, “My nose is bleeding.” I forget what to do and tell her to pinch and put her head back, but then we both agree that one should not put their head back. I’ve got the camera around my neck and the backpack on and Nicole’s fingers are covered in blood, so it takes me a moment to get her some Kleenex. Her nose stops bleeding, but she spits up a little blood every so often as we wonder as to its cause. Dryness? (I should say, once we crossed the creek and began going uphill, the trail became significantly drier.) Altitude? (Less than 2000’ at this point, with maybe 500’ gain.) At 13:10 she gives the go-ahead. We’re off.

Nosebleed point: view north across Thunder Creek and Diablo Lake.

Shortly, the switchbacks cease and instead of working your way away from the creek you run parallel to it, gaining elevation gradually from 2000’ to 2500’ before a second set of switchbacks begin. In between, glimpses of Snowfield Peak’s namesake feature and Colonial Peak to your right. There’s also ~3 streams that cross the trail in this section should you need water. We still had a fair amount, though we were going through it pretty quickly. Earlier, we saw a couple coming down through the switchbacks; the man was carrying one Nalgene bottle, the woman was carrying her purse. What!? Anyway, we didn’t filter water, but the third stream had some lovely little waterfalls, so I took out the camera and set up the tripod. We spent perhaps 20 minutes there, and somehow I only ended up with like four pictures. Strange. We were hiking again at 14:00.

Portion of a small waterfall along the trail.

Just after the above waterfall, the trail starts heading up through switchbacks again, and they don’t let up until you gain ~900’ of elevation (to 3400’) and arrive at Fourth of July Camp. It took us about an hour; we were pretty hot and going through the water we had with no reservations, but we’d arrived to very nice views across to Snowfield Peak’s Neve Glacier (and the waterfalls tumbling from it) and to the south we could now see Tricouni and Primus Peaks, which had been partially obscured by the trees while we made our way up the trail. As hot as it was, it would’ve been a hotter hike if it weren’t for the trees–though they do get in the way of the views. Up top we met a group of hikers and I shared my map with them to help them identify the peaks. Essentials can be fun, people!

Tricouni and Primus Peaks, as viewed from Fourth of July Camp.

And then: catastrophe. The picture above is not notable so much for its quality or artistic merit (though it does give ya’ll an idea of what the payoff for this hike is–a payoff most of the other hikers seemed disappointed with) as it is for its status as one of the last photos taken with my Nikon 55-200mm VR Zoom lens. It hurts me to talk about it, but for the sake of completeness and accuracy, I must. I was setting up the camera and tripod to take some shots across the way, and I apparently didn’t have it properly stabilized, because as I turned to take my notebook back from Nicole, I heard her gasp and the camera crash to the dirt and rock downhill.

When I turned around I could see the lens bouncing down a dozen feet or more away from the camera, which was still attached to the tripod. I stood in a mixture of disbelief and complete masochistic acceptance for a moment before I walked down to retrieve the pieces. I was certain all was lost. Earlier this year I dropped my iPhone weeks after buying it; now, it seemed, the camera was destroyed. As tight as money is, I still seem to find some [credit] to spend on expensive toys. And God punishes me by allowing me to break nothing except from the most expensive of them. The glass on the lens was still intact, but it wouldn’t zoom and it wouldn’t attach to the camera body anymore. I pulled out the kit lens to test the camera. The lens attached, the camera powered on, and I snapped a few pictures. It seemed to be working. So I put it away.

Sadness and the remains of the 55-200mm VR.

The group of hikers that were exploring Fourth of July Pass around us, and others as well, had agreed earlier that continuing on wasn’t exciting. And we both very, very depressed about the camera incident, so we headed downhill with heavy hearts and a pint of water between us. The time was 15:45.

The going was slow but steady through the switchbacks, on account of the descent being hard on Nicole’s knees, but by 18:30 we were back at camp with our boots off and hot dogs on the brain. The total distance, according to the Green Trails Map #48, was 9.2 miles round-trip, with 2200’ of elevation gain (and corresponding loss). The trip took us ~7 hours, including lunch, a nosebleed, photography, and mourning. It was more exhausting physically and emotionally than we’d planned on, so as the S’mores put us to sleep early, it was probably already decided that a second-day day-hike was probably not going to happen.

Early to bed, late to rise. Somehow we slept past 07:00. I got up and took some more pictures with my remaining lens. I’m still planning on taking the camera in for a check-up tomorrow, but it seemed to take fine photographs for the remainder of the trip, as you’ll see below. There’s a family of geese that have become a little too accustomed to handouts, from shore, and we saw a Stellar’s Jay investigating our neighbors’ campsite, but wildlife sightings on the entire trip consisted mostly of Douglas Squirrels. After fending off the geese and spitting our toothpaste into sinks, we packed up the Explorer and pulled out of the Colonial Creek Campground at 08:55.

Reflections in Diablo Lake from Colonial Creek Campground.

Since we weren’t going on another hike, and we’d only driven a small portion of WA-20 into NOCA, we headed east and checked out a few viewpoints (with views better than the hike we’d been on!), Ross Lake, Diablo Dam, and the NOCA Environmental Learning Center. More pictures, and we were back on the road.

Nicole at North Cascades Highway viewpoint, and Colonial Peak.

Us at the viewpoint, with Pyramid Peak and Paul Bunyan's Stump.

Nicole says I look like Ray Charles in this picture. Really?

As we approached Darrington, I remembered the sign that marked the Mountain Loop Highway, and, after pulling off to verify the information, we continued our quest to drive down the unseen roadways of Washington State. Out of Darrington, the highway shrank to a one-lane gravel road that followed the beautiful Sauk River, which has a plethora of great campsites alongside it. We also got to see many trailheads that I’ve read about–most are damaged, and most are access points to the Glacier Peak Wilderness Area. We’ll be going back to this area many times in the future, I hope. Eventually you end up back on blacktop, but there’s still tons of National Forest campsites, great views, and good trails.

We pulled into West Seattle sometime around 15:00 and sank into showers and pizza. We’ve got to stop eating pizza every time we come back–we can’t afford it!

It was a long day-and-a-half, but we got a lot of exercise and saw a lot of new territory. We probably won’t return to Fourth of July Pass, but we probably will return to the Thunder Creek Trail, and we’ll definitely explore NOCA and the Mountain Loop Highway in the weeks, months, and years to come.

Only a few more pictures at Flickr.