Steven's Pass to West Fork Foss

July 30th-August 4th, 2026

Background

Daniel and I have been on significant summer adventures together every year since 2022. These are always a highlight of my year because we share a similar appetite for adventurous multiday routes. This year, I had chosen to prioritize work over an Alsek River packraft trip Daniel was planning to go on. I was a bit sad we would break our streak together, but stoked for our respective plans!

Then, shortly before his trip, I got news that he had crashed his commuter bike and potentially broken his wrist. I was devastated for him! But, Daniel is always looking to make the most of his time on earth. Soon I got a text from him:

"...do you have any NW mountain plans/dreams that a one handed partner could join/enable?"

His hand had ended up in a cast - he obviously couldn't paddle, but figured he could walk. In fact, he was still planning to do a post-Alsek backpacking trip in Denali. I had a perfect window of time off right before that trip, and we decided to use it!

Route Choice

With a last-minute decision and busy workweeks, neither of us had time to do much homework before Daniel landed. We sat in a Safeway parking lot for hours, surveying all of western Washington on the maps. Our priorities, in order, were: 1) no major scrambling or steep snow, 2) clean air, 3) simple car logistics, and 4) time above treeline. I've come to learn that, in Washington, 1 and 4 are often opposed. We ruled out many areas due to fires, like the eastern Glacier Peak Wilderness and the Pasayten. We considered the Grand Loop in the Olympics and the Copper Ridge Loop in North Cascades, but both seemed a bit short and had permit complications. The Wonderland Trail was on the table, but I had already done it.

Eventually, I drew a line through the Alpine Lakes Wilderness that got immediate excitement from both of us. It would repeat terrain that we had done on the Alpine Lakes Crest Traverse and I hade done in the Foss Lakes, but at least it would be the best parts of each of those trips. Going somewhere familiar allowed us to go off-trail without worry of hard scrambling.

The Trip

I've already given my perspective on the details of this terrain in the two trip reports linked above. The miles we added on this trip were all on good trails. So, rather than give a day-by-day description of our journey, I intend to save some effort by simply memorializing it with photos and captions. Here we go!

Here at the pass, it was time for the weirdest moment of the trip. We hid behind a boulder and pondered our options. We were soaked, and cold in the wind. Usually movement is a tolerable solution, but soon, we would have to descent the Pea Soup Lake outlet waterfall slabs, and worried they would be dangerously slippery. It began raining again and we made a remarkably survival-ish decision to set up the tent and wait it out.

We got very cold despite the protection of the tent. Without it, we would've had to bail back to Jade or we would've faced more significant hypothermia. Wave after wave of rain came, and during a big one I optimistically complimented nature on it's "grand finale". Shortly after, the sun did come out, for just long enough to get us moving forward again.

I quickly developed my own "great replacement theory" about how the warm, wet, winter must've brought enough rainwater floods to blast out most of the green silt soup and replace it with clear water. But, as I write this and am looking at online images of Pea Soup Lake, it appears that it's color varies all the time! Not all theories are well founded!

As we ascended the deep ravine between Mount Daniel and Hinman, we suddenly came across a large hole in the snow. An ice cave! We approached with a high degree of trepidation, unfamilar with this type of feature. Eventually, the ice cave coaxed us inside and we spent about 30 miuntes exploring its depths. The whole thing was passable until another hole at the far upstream end that we couldn't climb out of. My phone was dead, and it was hard to take pictures inside with the big lens, but I managed a couple:

To my surprise it rained overnight, but I was still expecting the storm to clear and to have perfect weather for going up and over Hinman and beyond. Instead we awoke to a whiteout! We got a lazy start to the day, expecting it to clear, but it never did.

I guess I was too unispired to take photos, but we did the whole Hinman traverse in the clouds, with misting rain. Some of the terrain is complex, but we were able to navigate all of it and stay on safe slopes using Caltopo.

Before dropping to Chetwoot, we paused and pondered our remaining time. I had originally planned to finish this trip in less than 6 days and go do the Enchantments dayhike, but with the weather and a casual pace to give Daniel plenty of recovery time (he's broken, remember) we were going to use our whole time. But we weren't in a rush, so we decided to head up to the ridge and attempt a high route around the far side of Chetwoot instead.

I was really excited to walk past the big blue lakes of the West Foss again with Daniel. Unfortunately, the smoke was killing my enthusiasm a bit. We both tried to be stoked about the clarity and colors, but everything felt muted compared to my memory from two years ago. 

And then it was time for the real grand finale...

Notes

• When I saw the forecast for this trip I wished it would rain on any other day besides the middle. But there was no way around it. In hindsight, I would've pushed a bit faster to go over Hinman on the third morning since the storm came late and stayed long. But, hindsight...

• I was happy with most all of my gear on this trip. A highlight was the X-mid Pro 2, which is super light but provided a great shelter in all the ways we needed. I was happy with all my other UL gear too, including the SWD Movement Pack . Daniel and I discussed at the end how having light gear opens up the map for creative thru-trips like this where we carry all our stuff up and over the cool terrain, rather than just to the base of it.

• With such light rodent pressure, I became sick of using the Ursak. If they require getting up to scare away the bear anyway, why not just keep the food in the tent? Rodents, that's why, and we had few. I guess maybe it provides time to get oriented, get bear spray, but in this black bear habitat we didn't have that anyway.

• If the day 3 had been the only rain, I could've been satisfied with my shivery clothing choices. But really, for weather like this I decided I was missing an important ingredient. I really needed a midlayer I could wear under my rain jacket to stay warm, but my only option was my alpha fleece, which is great but I really wanted to keep it dry for camp. In hindsight, I would've rather brought a second light shirt to keep dry, and used the fleece as a midlayer when I needed it.

• Rain pants would've helped too. I usually can't toleerate wearing them so I don't generally bring them, but this is the type of weather they're actually for; exposed, windy, cold, and continuous.

• I would've had less weight and better photos overall if I had just brought my 14-140mm lens.