Fourth of July Creek Hike

April 17th was my much anticipated first hike of the season. I picked my friend Jose up at 6:00 AM and we headed east over Stevens Pass, both of us wondering how our bodies would hold up. Our destination: Fourth of July Creek Trail, about 6 miles due west of Leavenworth.

In Leavenworth we stopped for breakfast at Sandy’s Waffle and Dinner House, then headed out Icicle Creek Road to the trailhead.

A light rain was falling as I pointed out our destination high above, and after signing in at the trailhead at 9:00 AM, we began our ascent.

Things started out nice and easy as we entered the woods, with a gentle slope up as we crossed a gurgling stream.

Jose fords the stream

The trail soon began to climb. Jose seemed pretty unfazed, but my poor Microsoft-conditioned body was already beginning to protest.

As we climbed higher we started to hear an odd sound: “hoo…hoo…hoo.” We discussed what it could be but neither of us were able to identify the sound. Stopping for a brief water break, I wandered up the hill a bit and started a large brown bird, which went scurrying into the woods. I thought it was either a grouse or a pheasant. Soon we rounded a corner and discovered the source of the noise perched on a rock outcropping.

It turns out this impressive looking bird is a sooty grouse. He was extremely interested in perfecting his mating call and hardly paid us any heed as we crept closer and closer, except to turn and give me a bit of a glare as I crept past.

All along the trail we could see evidence of the massive wildfire that swept through this area in the early nineties.

After two and half hours of hiking we had climbed 1,400 feet to an altitude of 3,618, where we began to encounter snow on the trail.

We tried to stay on the trail and were soon filling our boots up with snow as we waded through the drifts, which were up to our waists in places. I wasn’t sure we could keep going given the trail conditions. Jose wasn’t too thrilled about hiking in the snow either, but whereas I was assuming that meant we’d have to turn back before too long, Jose kept looking mischievously straight up the hillside.

Was he serious? I followed Jose’s gaze up the rugged, rock-strewn incline. I paused, then shrugged my shoulders. Why not? Jose plunged ahead with abandon while I struggled to convince my legs to take one more step. This was serious scrambling now, with my hands doing a lot of the work as the hill grew even steeper. It was strenuous, but I had to admit that I was enjoying this more than plunging about in the cold snow.

We climbed five hundred feet to an altitude of 4,100, where I found Jose contentedly refreshing himself under a massive pine tree as I collapsed nearby. We had a brief lunch and rest before pressing on.

Eventually we ran back into the trail, but it was still too snowed in to use for more than a short distance. I tried going one way and Jose explored the other, trying to find a way up that was snow free. I ran into some great views but lots of snow, and eventually had to back-track and climb after Jose, who found another rugged but relatively dry way up.

We stopped to admire the view out over icicle creek valley and the 8,448 foot peak of Cashmere Mountain, directly across from us.

At this point we were at about 4,500 feet and it was 12:30. We decided to try and reach at least 5,000 feet before turning back. We climbed on, and I really mean climbed. We were literally using our hands to grab onto rocks and hauling ourselves up at various points. It became harder and harder to find a path that didn’t require scrambling through deep snow, but we managed to pick our way higher and higher, slowly pressing upward.

Looking back down the mountain

Finally we reached a rock outcropping. I checked the GPS and we were at 5,088 feet. Success!

We paused to appreciate the sheer wonder of God’s creation.

…but we weren’t above a little clowning around.

We thought about trying to go a bit higher, but at this point it was 1:00 PM and we’d been on the trail a good four hours. Not to mention as we looked up the hill it didn’t appear there were many snow-free options.

We began heading back down, discovering that you can go a lot faster when gravity is working with you.

It took us about two hours to make it back down, which was roughly double the speed it took us to climb up. On the way down the sun was out and the dusty smell of hot pine needles reminded me vaguely of summer’s on Lopez Island in the San Juan’s. We enjoyed watching several chipmunks as we picked up the trail and made our way back. Exhilarated from the hike, we stopped for a delicious early dinner of fresh Mexican food at South’s in Leavenworth, before doing a little shopping and heading back over the mountains. It was a perfect way to start out the hiking season.

Route and Hike Data

Hike data:

Here’s a terrain map showing our route up (green) and back down (red) the mountain.

Here’s an alternate view overlaid using Google Earth that gives a good idea of the terrain and how far up we made it.

Elevation profile:

Thanks to Perry Burkhart for suggesting this hike.