Distance: 60.2 mi. (24.6 on bike)
Elevation Gain: 18,600 ft. (1,500 on bike)
Rodrigo and I had wanted to get out on a longer friends trip over a summer weekend. We had to push the trip back multiple times due to life circumstances, fires, and weather and we finally settled on the last weekend in August. We had plans for various epic trips in BC but when the time came the weather models looked terrible and we decided to delay a few days. After waiting it out we decided we could go for a different trip on the east side of the cascades and only 4 days instead of 5 (and expecting a short rain in the middle).
We both had wanted to visit the Cardinal-Emerald group of the North Chelan Mountains but I had a crazy plan to do it as a long one way through hike with the assistance of a ferry ride and mountain bikes. We left my house early on Sunday and drove the up to Entiat and then the Shady Pass Road to stash mountain bikes at the Pyramid Mountain Trailhead. We continued driving all the way down to the Fields Point ferry landing. We had to wait around for a while until the 1PM Stehekin Ferry. We were two of maybe 15-18 people on the boat and the only non-locals from Stehekin, as it was just the second day since travel to the town opened back up due to the Pioneer Fire. We enjoyed talking to the crew and explaining our strange trip. We were the only ones dropped off at Lucerne and we quickly made our way along the roads to the south until finding the Domke Lake Trail.
The Domke Lake trail was in great shape up to the lake but we were glad it was a cool afternoon since there isn’t much protection from the sun. After splitting from the Domke Lake trail the Emerald Park trail began to degrade. The tread was relatively easy to follow but would occassionally disappear in bushes or downed trees (from the 2007 Domke Lake fire and 2015 Wolverine fire). This was the biggest unknown of the trip as I was unable to find many recent reports of the area, but I described the trail as “much better than feared but not quite as good as hoped”. We made our way into Emerald Park at 6 PM and scouted around, but found the best place to camp was just in the middle of the giant grassy area that is the park itself. There was a small stream on the far east side of the park but this spot might be dry much later in the year.
We woke up in a bit of a fog cloud and packed up our wet camp to get moving relatively early. We got absolutely soaked trudging through the wet grass on our way out of the park but the trail got better and better as we approached Milham pass. We enjoyed this part of the trail but going over the pass we entered the completely burned out area (also from the Wolverine fire). We descended down to about where the Trail from Saska Pass is supposed to meet our trail and dropped our packs by the creek. We brought the minimum for our quick trip up Pinnacle Mountain. This was a decently long side trip but most mostly enjoyable initially through burn and then on relatively easy scrambling up somewhat loose scree. Just below the summit we did encounter the only people we would really see on the trip, 3 guys that were climbing Pinnacle as an overnight trip.
We made our way back to our packs and continued on up the burnt out slope to Saska Pass. We didn’t really find much evidence of the trail until getting close to the pass. We then descended the trail a bit until we could traverse to the north and into the southern basin of Saska Peak. We again dropped our packs and scrambled up terrible scree and hard pack dirt to the SW ridge of Saska before scrambling up a gully to the right and to the summit. We hated this route but were pleasantly surprised by the amount of scree skiing we were able to do on the way down to improve the experience. We backtracked to our packs and continued down the trail to the small meadow at 6,900′ below Emerald Peak.
Before we started hiking the forecast said that a storm was supposed to roll in Tuesday night at around midnight, so we figured we could have a go at Cardinal Peak before calling it a day. We headed with small day packs down the trail through some switchbacks before leaving the trail at about 6,700′ before heading cross-country to the east to the boulder basin below the west face of Cardinal. Here we were encountered with an earlier than expected storm at 4 PM. We reluctantly headed back down to camp and a bit of a storm did roll through shortly after, justifying our decision but then the weather cleared up again until the original forecast and taunted us with clear views of Cardinal.
It was rainy and windy overnight but we slept in a bit until things cleared up. We decided it was nice enough to give Emerald a good and we were really glad we did, as it was the most enjoyable peak of the trip. This was a very steep route right up the southwest gully of the peak. The route eventually splits left up a ramp to ultimately access the west side of the peak. We had one spot where we got a bit off course but after some back and forth found the easy grass/dirt scramble to the fun upper rock scramble. We enjoyed the summit and found a frozen sweater someone else had forgotten before heading back down to pack up camp. We relaxed for a bit while packing and then continued on the trail toward Grouse Pass. The trail was in great shape the whole way.
After Grouse Pass we descended to the flatter area at about 7,000′ before heading off trail to the east up and around the upper basin at 7,100′ before ascending to the small pass at about 7,300′ and then traversing flat around the next basin and then slowly up to 7,400′ and then up a relatively steep gully until reaching easy slopes above at about 7,700′ until we could meet the end of a switchback on the Pyramid Mountain trail. We again dropped our packs and quickly hiked up the super nice trail to the top of Pyramid where there are some of the most amazing views of Lake Chelan.
After rejoining our packs we continued down the trail toward the trailhead. The biggest error we made with this trip was not leaving jugs or bladders of water at the trailhead with the bikes, which meant we had to fill up with water before our last camp at the parking lot. We had marks on my gps of where various water sources were located on the way out (Luke Helgeson gps track on Peakbagger). There were four marked locations and there was water at each one of them but the 3rd of 4 was not much of a stream and we panic filled up before the last one, which meant we hiked the last 6 miles or so with heavier packs.
We made it to the trailhead just before dark and set up camp and drank the rest of our whiskey. We slept well and woke up with the sun in the morning and got ready to ride the bikes down the hill. We set off at xx and had to initially push up a small hill before being able to easily roll to shady pass road and then down to the biggest hill up and over Junior Point. The almost 1000′ walk up this part of the road did well to warm us up in the chilly morning. After that hill, we rolled down to Chesapeake Saddle where we had to push up another small hill before it was all downhill to the lake. This ride was super enjoyable and we made great time. We biked along the lakeshore road over a few minor hills and were back at the car at xxx before the long drive back home.
(Download the free Gaia GPS app on your phone to view tracks and then get a Gaia GPS membership if you want offline access. Discount below!)
Recommended brew: Ex Novo Brewing Kill the Sun (2023)
Gear:
- Backpacking tent
- Bear canister
- GPS
- Helmet
- Mountain bike
- Overnight pack
- Sleeping pad
- Summer sleeping bag
- Stove
- Trail runners
- Trekking poles
- Water drops/filter
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