Of my hiking trips, this is the one I probably remember the most fondly. The trip was long in distance (~117 miles) and duration (~11-12 days, as I recall). It was to an area, the Pasayten Wilderness, I had never visited and that is not very crowded.
The Pasayten Wilderness is the largest designated wilderness area in Washington State managed by the USFS. The Boundary Trail goes from east to west across the Pasayten, often only a few miles south of the USA-Canada border. The Boundary Trail is now a component of the Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail.
Our hiking group consisted of Bruce Edwards (a high school classmate and frequent hiking companion), Ray Kenyon and me. Ray was about 20 years older than Bruce and I and was my boss at the Visual Techniques Laboratory in the Physics Department at the University of Washington where I worked as a “Student Helper” in the electronics lab. Ray was an avid hunter and used the summer hikes as his way to get in shape for Autumn hunting trips to Montana.
We did the hike as a one-way trip. We left my Chevy Blazer at the Ruby Arm parking lot on SR20 where we planned on completing the trip and had Ray’s son
drive us to the starting point. My recollection is that we started at the Thirty-Mile Trailhead along the Chewuch River rather than the Iron Gate Trailhead because the drive back for Ray’s son to Issaquah (where Ray lived) was significantly shorter. That added another day to our trip to hike up and over Windy Peak and join the Boundary Trail at Sunny Pass.
Once on the Boundary Trail we wound our way west along the sides of open slopes at elevations between 6500 and 7200 feet. The views were broad and scenic. One standout feature was the Teapot Dome looming prominently above the trail. The abandoned Tungsten Mine and its detritus reminded us of how hard people worked to extract anything of value from the earth. The trail passed through Cathedral Pass between Amphitheater Mountain and Cathedral Peak.
After dropping 2,000 feet to cross the Ashnola River, we quickly regained the elevation wound along near the ridge tops before passing over the top of Bunker Hill Mountain to drop down to the Pasayten River. While travelling several miles up the river, we encountered the Pasayten Airstrip, now closed on account of the area
becoming a designated wilderness.
From here we crossed a low pass in a narrow valley, crossed the Chuchuwanteen Creek (I still love saying that name), headed up Frosty Creek towards Frosty Pass, then to Castle Pass where we crossed the Pacific Crest Trail. We began to encounter more snow on the trails at this point, but we managed to stay on route. We didn’t take it personally when our route took us down Three Fools Creek (we had gotten this far, after all).
We spent a night at (in?) Deer Lick Cabin near the confluence of Three Fools Creek and Lightning Creek. I remember the roar of the water from all the snow melt runoff was deafening.
Shortly after, we got our first glimpse of Ross Lake and our final major descent of the trip. Once at the lake, we hiked the East Bank trail to the Ruby Arm trailhead off SR20 where our return vehicle waited for us.
My recollection of the weather was that it was generally good but there might have been some cloudy days and light rain showers. There was more snow than I expected along the route the further west we got, so It must have been a heavy snow year or a late Spring melt. We certainly had lots of solitude as I can’t remember meeting many (any?) other hikers. We might have encountered some horse packers in the eastern sections of the route which has less steep terrain and lighter vegetation.
From Internet searching (e.g., here and here), it appears that the route is still doable but that in places the trail is a victim of its remoteness because trail maintenance has suffered. But for those people who persevere, I find it gratifying that the experiences we had nearly 50 years ago are still achievable.
