On the drive to see Annie Get Your Gun in Leavenworth with Tim and Joyce, Tim and I decided to take a hike the next day. Despite getting home from the play at 1:30am, we deciided to go anyways, and were on our way to Darrington by 8:30. The trailhead was easy to find out of town, though my vintage 1988 copy of 100 Hikes in the Glacier Peak Region we found the trailhead.

The trailhead, we found, was actually displaced by about 3/4 of a mile due to the massive Squire Creek rockslide. This event, on February 25, 2002 displaced 8 acres of the mountainside but completely eradicated the road below. The devastation was readily apparent.

We scrambled past and rejoined the old trailhead road to the original trailhead about 1.5 miles down the road. Then the actual hoke began in earnest.

The hike climbed gradually through a brushy, mostly deciduous forest until it reached the border of the Boulder Creek Wilderness. Here the ecology of the forest totally transformed from previously logged regrowth to virgin old growth cedar. Massive trees like I've never seen were everywhere; it was quite rewarding to see.

The trail gradually steepened, and the condition of the trail gradually worsened. Though dry for our hike, I could see a light rain turning the trail into a stream. At points it was both hidden by brush and marred by 12-16" step ups. But it was still managable.

We reached a large rock slab scree and stopped for a snack, and decided to make this our turn around point. We had a Sweeping view of both Three Fingers and Whitehorse so we decided we probably wouldn't gain much from reaching the pass. So we stopped here at 2900ft for about an hour. Of snacking, resting and most importantly, photo snapping. The best part of the hike was the fact that we were the only people in the entire valley. We had it all to ourselves. Quite surprising on an 85 degree weekend on such a short jaunt from Darringon!

I probably wouldn't repeat this hike, but I would recommend it to others if the weather is dry.

I have an album of photos from this hike.