7/17, Saturday. We headed out of Seattle ~7:30am, overcast. Sunny east of Stevens Pass.
The 3-4 mile past the bible camp, Tall Timber, is gravel, very narrow first. ~8 cars in the parking lot.
Here is the start of 2 trails: White River and Indian Creek (cross the nice bridge,
with good view of the roaring river below). We headed straight onto
White River trail.
The river has a nice color.
The trail is well maintained for the first mile or so. Saw freshly cut down logs (thanks).
Close views of the river at first, but not for long. In 5 minutes, we entered Glacier Peak Wilderness.
Some big trees. Nice trail, but overgrown at times: barely saw my feet when walking through tall thimbleberry/salmonberry (no berry!) bushes.
~4 miles in, crosses Boulder Creek on a large log. Soon after, the signed junction to Boulder Pass trail.
Here is a large camping site by White River.
Mosquitoes were not too bad: dry forest, running water. So far somewhat boring.
Boulder Pass trail turns right, after some flat minutes, it slowly zigzags up a slope, with the creek to your right, but usually out of sight. Very well graded. Glances of distant peaks of Thunder Basin. After ~1000', the trail levels and goes through more trees and into Boulder River basin. Water on trail, more bugs. At ~4100' (~2 miles from junction), cross Boulder Creek (3 braids next to each other, the last one requires an easy ford). We took a rest drying our feet on the big boulder right after the crossing. Quite some monkey flowers here.
The view improves greatly, now that the trail zigzags on the right (west facing - warm) slope over Boulder Creek, and all the way to its source, a scenic meadowy basin full of pink heathers, at ~5000' (about 8 miles from TH). There's an obvious trail junction (unmarked), about 2 miles from the ford. Turn left for the basin. Keep straight for Boulder Pass. A large campsite before the juunction. We turned left. The end of the basin still had snow, waterfalls hanging in front. All along quite buggy. More flies than mosquitoes. We both wore head nets. Not too many good camp sites at the end of the basin. We settled at one close to the trail. Only then, did I realize that I forgot to bring my tent! Thankfully O has a 2p tent. We each found a tree and hid in the shade. I took a nap, after covering myself with an extra layer of clothes to deter biting insects. I lost my sunscreen somewhere in the basin.
Once the shade reached our camp, O pitched her tent, and we headed out towards Boulder Pass ~6pm. Saw a nice campsite near the trail. Quite some paintbrush, columbine, thistle on the slope. It's about 1200' gain from camp to the pass. The trail is nice and well graded.
The pass had some snow patches melting fast. The Boulder Pass trail continues down to Napeequa Valley. It's more U-shaped than other creek basin. Not as pretty as I had hoped. View from the other side (Little Giant Pass) would be better, because you could see Walrus and Clark glaciers from that side. Didn't stay long. Tons of mosquitoes here. Couldn't even take a panorama photo without risking a dozen bites.
On the way back, a deer was staring at us for a long time. A few marmotts. Scanned the opposite side of the valley to guess tomorrow's route.
The tent was wet when we returned. A colder night than I had thought. Even with 2 people in the tent, I was still somewhat cold in my 45°F bag + a liner + all my clothes. I did get up to see stars, not bad.
We didn't see anyone all day.
7/18, Sunday, sunny. Up early. Chilly. We started out shortly after 6am.
Followed the trail (not on map), zigzaging over to the left slope of Boulder Creek basin. Morning light casted a nice glow over the open country. Over a low ridge, huckleberry, heather, corn lily, speedwell, nice place to wander, no other human in sight.
The view from the south ridge of Point 8373 is very good. Too bad, that we climbed up a wrong col (the lowest one on the ridge). Had to back down and traverse to the higher col which has a gully on the other side to go down the ridge. I put on my helmet, traversed in the middle of the steep slope: it wasn't good. O traversed lower on snow and then went up. On our way back, we came back down the proper col. It was loose and steep above the snow. I didn't like it either.
At the correct col, we saw a group of goats on the higer slope of the Y basin. Now, this gully is very steep, especially the lower half. Not too many good rocks to hold on to. After that, the traverse over the Y Basin slope is also not safe. So slow going. As we got closer to the goats, they moved higher.
Once we were on the proper climb, the condition is better. Snow to the south ridge of Clark, not very steep, and then scramble up to the summit. A bit like Black Peak: part loose gravel, part solid rock. We met a group of 3 at the large cairn which marks the trail junction. Going down here to continue to Luahna. Looks a large drop, and super steep. These 3 hauled their overnight pack here. They camped in the Y Basin below. They said, it took 3 hours to Luahna, and 1 hour to Clark from their camp. Going down here is as bad as the gully we came down earlier. I just cannot imagine myself hauling a large pack on these steep loose gully.
By the time I reached the summit, it was almost noon. This took a lot longer than I thought. We didn't have time to continue to Luahna, nor do I want to drop down the 2nd gully. Being a chicken, I'm too slow on steep slopes. There are 2 geo markers on the rocks at the summit, but didn't see summit registry.
On the way back, we took a slightly different route after the col. Back to the camp ~3pm, and packed out a little before 4pm. Reached car ~8pm.
I drove home, totally exhausted. O left Monday morning. I threw away my cheap gaiters from Amazon ( velcro was falling off) and my 30-yo shirt (shoulder torn). Next weekend, will bring proper gaiter and new shirt.
I probably won't climb Clark again. I do like the basin for camping and the solitude, maybe do a loop with Little Giant Pass, later in the season, after mosquitoes are gone. There are a lot of huckleberry bushes,
