Sunday August 21st. Start ~4:30 pm. Distance: ~5.5 miles. Elevation Gain: 1300 ft.
The Drive – Usually I don’t include the drive, but this one was a little special. Last winter I donated my faithful Windstar minivan and replaced it with a great 1993 Mazda B2600 pickup.
Loaded and ready to hit the trail!
The last few weeks the clutch was getting a little sticky, but who thinks about these things when getting ready for a trip? The Phelps Creek trailhead is around 90 miles from Seattle – a quick trip on Hwy2 over Stevens Pass, left on 207 past Lake Wenatchee and Fish Lake, then 20 miles north on FS62. Well, I guess I should have thought about the clutch because somewhere between Monroe and Sultan I found myself clutchless. At this point, I figured I would just go for it, shifting without the clutch and deal with repairs when I got home. Ken might say au contraire, but excepting the left through traffic off of HWY2 – a few ‘rolling’ stop signs and one or two scary moments dealing with oncoming traffic on the one lane gravel road – I think the drive went pretty well. We arrived at the trailhead around 4:15pm, positioned the truck so that I could roll back, and get it into gear rolling downhill when we were done, and by 4:30 we were ready to hit the trail.
Phelps Creek Trailhead - The start of another adventure.
The Phelps Creek Trail (1511) is an easy walk between the creek some distance below to the west and a series of mountains (Carne, Maude, Seven Fingered Jack, Dumbell) connected by ridges to the east. We took the opportunity to ease into the trip, reacquainting ourselves with the 40lbs of pack, adjusting straps etc. We met a dozen or more people heading out after day hikes or weekend trips (there were more than 30 cars in the lot), which improved the prospect of a reasonable campsite at Spider Meadow. Along the way we crossed several creeks that were still carrying snow melt down to Phelps Creek, though the flow rates were low enough that none posed any difficulty.
We made it to the meadow by around 6pm and decided to hike through to the same area we had camped in 2003. Unfortunately, a fairly large avalanche had swept across from the east ridge, snapping off trees along it’s path, and burying our intended camp.
Spider Meadow avalanche.
We hiked across the remaining snow, which even this late in the season looked to be several feet deep and at least 100ft across – not likely to melt out before winter. Under the circumstances, we decided to hike back and set up camp at the base of the meadow where there were open spaces and ready access to water from Phelps Creek.
After setting up camp, we pulled out the hamburgers we grilled and froze the night before, heated them up, wrapped them burrito style and ate like kings under the clear night sky. Flanked on the east and west by sheer walls of granite, the sun set early on the meadow. Before long the sky darkened and the nightly celestial show began. I look forward to this display every trip I make, and as the milky way became visible it heightened the contrast with my home night sky where it is obscured by the city lights. After an hour of sky time, including a cameo appearance by the ISS, I crawled into my sleeping bag and despite the usual first night aches and pains, I quickly drifted off to sleep.
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