Start: Darrington, WA
Finish: Bacon Creek Road
Daily Mileage: 32.7
PCT Mile: off trail 2505.2
As typical, we got a slower start out of town even though we needed to put in some good miles today. It is easiest and quickest to pack up in town since most of your gear isn’t set up, but it is a different environment with gear scattered around the room and the luxuries of town with cell signal, a bed, and a roof over your head.
We set out for an aggressive day of road walking to attempt to get to the edge of North Cascades National Park, so we could pass through the park without needing a permit tomorrow. The end of the trail is also drawing quite near and we had a target finish date we just pulled up 4 days since this alternate was going to take less time and our ride was available then.
We hopped onto WA-530 which was a paved road with a good shoulder. On the edge of town we passed a lumber mill with logging trucks flying in and out of it as typical. It is definitely the industry of the area.
The road was flat and had a good shoulder most of the way, but there were long straight sections where boredom quickly set in. We had an option early on to take a small road and some forest track as an alternate to the paved road, but land ownership was unclear and we would have to walk down a road for a bit before seeing if the forest road was viable, so there was risk of wasting steps and time and having to turn around. Since 530 wasn’t busy and was easy walking, we decided to stay on it. If I had more time to research this alternate, maybe the other route would have been fine, but I’ve had minimal time to study this whole reroute and there was very little information from the few hikers who did something similar ahead of us.
We crossed the Sauk River and continued along it through forest on more straight, flat road. Road can actually be more tiring and hard on the feet than even dynamic up and down trail, so we took our first break a little earlier than usual on the bank of the river. I’ve found in the past that even short breaks can help kill the monotony of road walking and also greatly help you feet recover from the pounding on hard pavement.
We reached another potential shortcut which would allow us to skip a long corner in the road and save about a mile while also getting off the pavement. It was gated land but allowed foot access. However, Honeybun noticed a leaf taped to the gate which another hiker had written on that the route wasn’t viable and continuing on the road was the way. We were impressed at the ingenuity of the hiker to use a leaf as paper and the smallest strip of tape to get their message across, and that they actually carried a pen. In a route without Farout, the hiker app, there are not many ways to pass along information to those behind you.
The road became more civilized with houses popping up alongside it. I was looking over to the side of the road when I noticed some movement in a pool in a stream. A beaver was paddling around. I had seen them from a great distance before in the wild, but this was actually the closest I had been to one. We watched for a few minutes before it dove beneath the water. Though road walks can get boring, you do see a different type of country and have different experiences than sticking to the mountain ridges all the time, so they can turn out interesting.
We ground it out for another 10 miles or so to reach the town of Marblemount. The hiking was still incredibly easy, but the road pretty straight and it takes forever to get to and see what is around the next bend.
We crossed the Skagit River and got to Marblemount which had a decent convenience store which had some “sandwiches” made with meat product and imitation “cheese” containing water, oil, and dry milk as ingredients. I would normally be appalled by something like this, but compared to the processed bars I have been eating for months straight, these sandwiches were like a juicy steak and I tore into two of them along with an adult beverage. One perk of road walking.
We had reached WA-20 which is a 2 lane road crossing through North Cascades National Park and Rainy Pass. We weren’t sure what traffic would be like on this busier road, but the road is closed near the pass due to the Easy Fire with no way for traffic to get through, so the road had few vehicles on it. The shoulder was slightly narrower at times, but there was still plenty of room, especially given the lack of traffic.
We went a few miles down the road to the very edge of North Cascades National Park and looked around for a place to camp just outside it. There was an abandoned parking lot next to Bacon Creek but it was paved which didn’t work for our non-freestanding tents. There was a great sandy flat spot below the road bridge with even a few fire rings. We almost set up there but there were an extreme amount of mouse or rat droppings around the rocks next to the bridge, so we opted to not deal with potential overnight visitors. After poking around on Bacon Creek Road, we found a couple spots that were passable and still just outside the park. Sometimes campsites will just do instead of being nice spots, but it comes with the territory.
Today was mostly a grind but we did make a ton of progress and got through most of the remaining road walking. There were some perks with the change in scenery, river walk, beaver sighting, and accessibility of food that you don’t get much on the trail, so I’ll take it along with the forward progress made.
