Mineral Creek September, 2003

Route Information

Our Mineral Creek trip started out pretty normal, we met at the Park N Ride in Issaquah early one weekday morning in September, and soon were zooming up I-90 towards Snoqualmie Pass. One hitch: one of us forgot a lunch. It was decided that we would stop at a certain gas station on the outskirts of Roslyn rather than continue into Cle Elum.

We arrived at the hot trailhead, greeted by many yellowjackets

We had been planning a trip up the Mineral Creek trail for a few years now, and finally had gotten around to it. We both had been to the Park Lakes basin a few times, but we wanted to check out the mines along Mineral Creek and some other areas off the Pacific Crest Trail. Our plan was to spend one night in the area, camping at Upper Park Lake.

The first mile of the hike was on an old mining road

We arrived at the gas station outside of Roslyn. It is located at an intersection, and there are a few businesses there, one that looks like it sells or services snowmobiles in the winter. The lunch situation looked grim: this was a small mini-mart, so the missing lunch might need to be made up of chips and twinkies. Much to our surprise, inside there was a small deli counter, and a woman asking us what kind of sandwich we would like her to make! After getting a nice looking sandwich and some other junk, we went outside to use the restroom. The "facilities" here consist of about 8 sanikans lined up in a row. We decided to play a little game of "Russian Sanikan Roulette", the object being where an individual tries to pick a sanikan that hasn't been visited recently by someone with loose bowels. At least one of us admitted that he "lost" the game.

We spotted this adit across the creek, but didn't visit it

The rest of the drive up to the trailhead went pretty quick. The road is nicely paved all the way to Cooper Lake, and from here we took a smooth gravel road over Cooper Pass, and depressingly down a few thousand feet to the trailhead. We unloaded and were getting ready to take off when one of us made an early equipment failure announcement: a boot was about to lose it's sole (soul?). After a quick inspection, it was deemed that the boot was not a serious problem. A spare pair of running shoes would be tied on a pack, and we had plenty of duct tape.

Within 500 feet, the trail comes to a creek crossing over a log which might be exciting in the early season. Another somewhat rough 1/4 mile takes the hiker to an intersection with the ancient mining road that runs part way up Mineral Creek. We turned right here and headed up the smooth wide tread.

The cabin ruins were easy to spot by the trail

We were looking for the "Durrwachter Property": an old cabin site and series of adits on Mineral Creek which were activly worked around the 1920's. The first landmark would be the cabin site, which we were unsure if we could spot it among the thick brush. Every few moments we would call out to one another to see if there was any sign of the Durrwachter cabin. We noticed that saying "Durrwachter" was somewhat habit-forming, and also irritating. We stopped every so often to look up at the slopes of Three Queens, and the red gulches that had obviously attracted prospectors long ago.

We climbed up the hot rocks to the first adit

After about a mile, the "road" ended and became a normal trail. We soon spotted the cabin remains off to the right of the trail. We immediately stopped, put the packs down and decreed it lunchtime (11:00 AM). We rested, ate, and looked around a little at the cabin site which was decidedly boring. We found someones glasses by the trail. It looked like someone had started to clear a trail down to the creek from the cabin site. We decided to follow the route this way to the adits, which was a mistake.

The location of the adits can be seen from the cabin site. It is across the creek, just below a dirty slope that looks like a landslide has occurred. In fact, it has and this is what partially blocks one of the adits. We made our way down the route, which got worse as we went, much Devil's Club and steep slots between large boulders. We finally made it to the creek and worked our way up by rock hopping. In a few minutes we were at the mine site, and scrambled up to the first adit.

The second adit we visited was almost entirely collapsed

A quick look into the first adit made it very clear that we were not going in. It was full of water, dripping, in addition to looking dangerous. There was a sign, now underwater that probably said "Do Not Enter - Really Wet" or something. We poked around outside the opening, where there was a lot of glittering pyrite. We clunked off a few chunks using the Cave-Man method, beating then into submission with larger rocks. By now, we had become Charles and Ernest Durrwachter, speaking to each other in cheesy German accents. After a few minutes, we climbed along the slope a few more feet to our other adit, which was essentially the same elevation as the downstream one, just a little bit up the creek. This adit is almost closed up due to slides from above. One can just peer inside and see that the conditions are worse than the downstream adit. Here the Durrwachter brothers wept over the bad news, but did manage to come away with some interesting mineral samples from nearby. Just upstream are some interesting pools in the creek as well. We made our way back to the trail here and back to our packs.

[The best way to reach the mine area from the cabin site is to continue up the trail a few hundred feet, past a wet up & down gully, and just beyond where some remains of an old wooden staved pipe can be seen (loops of iron wrapping) on the right. Leave the trail here, and go towards the creek in easy open woods and light brush. As you drop to the creek, and adit area becomes visible]

We continued up the trail in the hot afternoon sun. Soon one comes to a crossing of the creek (and the last water for a while in late season). We ignored the log crossing and muddled around getting lost for a few minutes. Soon we were back on track, crossing the log and pushing on. Much newish brush work was evident along the long climb up the creek valley, but after about an hour we passed where the crews had stopped. The trail here wasn't too bad, deep ruts and dust, with vine maple and other assorted brush often forming a tunnel over the trail.

We had a nice comfortable camp near the lake

The outlet from Lower Park Lake provided some welcome water. Just before descending to the creek crossing is a great shady camping area in the woods. We noticed a small adit on the right side of this creek - and climbed a few feet up to it. This hole is only about 5 feet deep, and is not worth the trouble getting to. The trail got steep here, then entered the woods where the tread was nice. Soon we were climbing the last switchbacks to Upper Park Lake basin, and we emerged into the beautiful meadows at around 4:00 PM.

There was already one party at the lake, and they happened to be flaked out all over the ground taking up most of two campsites near the lake. We headed west around the lake, over the (dry) outlet, and found a nice campspot near the lake at a spot that probably would have been wettish in any other year. We dropped our packs here and took a quick tour around the entire lake in a clockwise direction. The water level was very low. We set up camp, and spent an hour or so splayed out on our sleeping pads in the sun, enjoying the bug free weather.

Climbing up the talus slopes on the PCT

We continued to loaf around, listening to the Mariner pre-game show on the radio, and thought about preparing dinner. It was a gorgeous evening, and after dining we retired to the heather slopes next to our camp, where we listened to the Mariners game and watched the stars come out in the darkening sky. The game would prove to be good entertainment that night; it took 14 innings for the M's to finally win - by that time it was quite dark but still warm. Our hoots and hollers had probably kept our neighbors awake for a while. Before we went in the tent for the night, we noticed a bright Mars shining over the nearby peak.

Looking over towards Joe Lake, Thompson (L), Huckleberry (R)

The night was chilly. In the morning we got up and around pretty quick, as we had a few things we wanted to look at. Packing some small day packs, we headed up the connecting trail to the PCT, which we then took in the direction of Snoqualmie Pass. Our immediate goal was to climb the slopes above Park Lake to 'Chikamin Pass' (is this really the name?), the pass that separates the Park Lakes basin and the Gold Creek basin. The trail was nice in the cool early morning, and we passed a few people camping near the trail on the way up. The night before we had seen lights periodically on the hillside, so it had probably been from them. After about an hour, we topped the ridge and could see down to Gold Creek and the small lakes directly below.

We continued on the PCT for about 1/4 mile, to get past the trees and out into the open. The trail construction here was amazing. There were great views over to Joe Lake, Alaska Lake, as well as some of the peaks like Thompson and Huckleberry. We took more pictures and made notes for a possible future trip down into the head of the basin. After a while we headed back to the pass, and down the PCT. We met several people coming up the trail on their way to Snoqualmie Pass.

We had arrived at the Stone Kingdom viewpoint

Our next goal was to explore the area over towards Glacier Lake, and have lunch there. On the way up earlier, we passed by what we assumed was the route to Glacier Lake, which leaves the PCT at about 5200', right before the PCT makes a westward turn up the talus slopes to Chikamin Pass. We found the location again, and followed the well-traveled footpath up to a small knob, and were impressed with the views down to Spectacle Lake and over to Lemah Mountain, Chimney Rock and more. At this spot, we could just pick out part of Glacier Lake in the distance below.

Glacier Lake, and the small cave below the waterfall

We started down the route to Glacier Lake, which has a beaten path all the way to it - the first part was somewhat steep and rough, and the rest was very easy over pleasant terrain. In less than a 1/2 hour, we were traversing the steep path right above Glacier Lake, and soon dropped down to the outlet area where we took a quick dip. It was approaching noon, so we found a nice grassy perch near the outlet, and sat down to make some of the most excellent tuna rolls using the tuna that comes in an envelope. The waterfall into the lake was barely dripping. We theorized that the cave behind the waterfall must have formed over the years due to freezing water and subsequent expanding/cracking.

We watched the smoke & flames from a wildfire in the distance

After relaxing at Glacier Lake, we packed up our daypacks and started back up the footpath around the lake, and across the slope back to the PCT. We were not looking forward to making the climb back up to 'Stone Kingdom Pass'. As we approached, we picked up the path going up the steep hillside past a few tricky spots and it wasn't too bad after our rest at the lake. In a few minutes it was over and we were sitting upon the bare rocks taking in the views again.

This had been a bad year for wildfires in the backcountry, and once at the small pass, we could see smoke back over a few ridges in the direction we had come from [probably around the Escondido Lake area]. We watched the fire for a while, and occasionally could see orange flames shooting up with the smoke. We figured that it had been smoldering for a long time, and had just started up again and would burn itself out. We packed back down the trail to our camp, now listening to the Husky football game on the radio which had just started.

We packed up and started down the trail. It was hot and muggy, and soon we passed many people coming up to the lake for the weekend, and the forecasted rain. Where would they all camp? It only took about 2 hours to get back to the Durrwachter cabin remains, and there we picked up the rocks and mineral samples that we collected the day before. A little while later we were loading the packs up, and driving out. The drive out was uneventful, except for a little mishap with Verizon Wireless. Evidently "Roaming" requires a pin number which no one had. The Verizon phone now rests in a landfill somewhere.

References:

• Discovering Washington's Historic Mines Vol II - Oso Publishing. Info on the Mineral Creek area & mines.
• 100 Hikes in the Alpine Lakes - Mountaineers. Mineral Creek trail information.