23.5 miles of hiking • 5500' elevation gain • 2 nights
We had originally planned for this to be a 4 day / 3 night trip, but after encountering holiday weekend crowds and few campsites along Goat Ridge decided to cut it a day short. None the less, it was a fantastic weekend, with sunny warm days and miles of trails through endless fields of wildflowers.
Day 1 (Thursday) - Walupt Lake to Sheep Lake Started our trip on the Nannie Ridge trail from Walupt Lake. We got a late start, arriving at the TH around 3:30pm. We arrived at Sheep Lake around 7pm, where we found very few available campsites. There was a solo tent that was set-up in the large established campsite on the northeast end of the lake. We didn't want to camp too close to them, so we ended further back in the trees. By the next morning, we were able to determine the tent had been unoccupied all night! After surmising the possible reasons it could be there, our plan was to report it to the ranger station once we got back to the TH.
Day 2 (Friday) - Sheep Lake to Old Snowy Got a late start, finally getting on the trail shortly before 11am. We left Sheep Lake and headed north on the PCT, over Cispus Pass and into Cispus Valley. We happened across a PCTA trail crew shortly before the Snowgrass Flats junction, they were doing some fantastic work to improve water drainage and maintain culverts along the trail. After chatting with them for awhile about volunteer opportunities and the mystery tent at Sheep Lake (they said it may be holding the site for a volunteer work crew based at Sheep Lake over the weekend), we hike a short distance to our second camp near the PCT / Snowgrass Flats Junction. Once we unloaded gear from our packs we hiked up to Packwood Glacier and then summited Old Snowy. As we were coming back down from Old Snowy, we looked down and there was Train (www.hiking26.com) at the PCT / Old Snowy junction! I had been following his blog sporadically through the season, so it was an unexpected and pleasant surprise to see him on the trail. After some introductions and photos, we were back on our way to our campsite for the evening.
Day 3 (Saturday) - PCT / Snowgrass Flats Junction to Berry Patch TH Brr...what a cold morning. We woke up to find the thermometer on the watch reading 27F! As we were finishing up breakfast and breaking down camp, we heard some guy cussing up a storm while heading up the trail. I peeked out from behind a tree to see what type of person would take that kind of abuse from their hiking partner; only to find out the guy was by himself, ala Fight Club. It was a reminder to me about why I choose not to hike solo. We left camp at almost 10am, taking the Snowgrass trail to the Lily Basin trail. As were were heading down toward Lily Basin, we could still see frost crystals on the trail that were large enough to make the dirt look like it was standing up! (This is apparently a common phenomena in the PNW, but to a native Californian who only learned about freezing fog last winter, this was pretty cool.) We followed this trail to Goat Lake, which is is starting to melt, but probably will not melt out before the snows return later in the year. From there, were headed down Goat Ridge. Although it was still early afternoon, we started looking for a campsite for the evening. The stretch of trail between Goat Lake and Berry Patch was BUSY. After finding most campsites already occupied and seeing the large number of hikers coming into the wilderness for their first night, we decided to go ahead and hike out to the TH. Seriously, there were A LOT of people. Much more than established campsites in the area would be able to accomodate. We were not the only ones who came to the same conclusion, as another two couples we had been leapfrogging on the trail for a couple days opted to hike out also.
We ended the hike at the Berry Patch TH, where Phil and Jerri (who we had gotten to know on the trail) offered to give us a ride back to Walupt Lake. We talked backpacking in the Cascades and the CA Sierras and after getting back to out car, we met up with them at the Walupt Lake day use area for post backpacking coffee and snacks before the drive home.
Roman
September 9, 2012
It's my favorite area in PNW, though I try to stay away from there on Labor Day. Any other weekend (if you have a chance) you won't see 1/3 as many people.