Upper Chikamin Tie and Mad River, Garland Peak Trails

We were doing brief planning for our annual Cascade Loop trip and pondering a larch hike with few people.  My husband suggested the Upper Chikamin Tie and Mad River, Garland Peak Trails based on a geocache posting he had seen with a picture of a lovely larch lined meadowed slope and Garland Peak as the backdrop. It said it was only about 3 miles RT which would be perfect. I checked WTA and there were no recent trip reports so it seemed like a go. Then I put two and two together. Chikamin Ridge. Chikamin Ridge Fire. No wonder there were no reports. But a search on the Forest Service website said the trails had reopened on 9/24 so that was a good sign, right? We decided we would at least go check it out and see how far we could get.

Early Saturday morning, we drove up FR 6210 8 miles to the Upper Chikamin Tie Trail. Knowing what I know now, I would probably have stopped at 7 miles where the road has been widened with a lot of parking space and just walked the extra mile in. Aside from a few ruts and places where the fire had obviously been above the road, it was an easy drive. The last mile, though, was pretty rocky (the sharp, puncture your tires kind) and the parking at the end of the road was minimal.  We were the first to arrive so it was an easy turn around. It was also a little confusing if going by the map, it makes it look like the road continues past the trailhead, which it does not.

The red flagging from having been closed was dangling from the trailhead marker matched some of the fiery blueberry bushes lining the trail as we began our way up.  The trail was in good shape for a bike trail and an easy grade.

My husband was paying attention to where the coordinates were the geocache he was looking for and about .75 miles in, it was clear the waypoint was somewhere off trail to our left and up the drainage of a north fork of Chikamin Creek. There was no obvious boot path or trail junction.  Hmmm…

Now, I’m all for a good scramble but that would most likely eat up more of our day than I wanted to give up so instead we continued on the trail in search of other larches. At about 5200 feet the trail leveled out at a gap nestling another fork of Chikamin Creek and then came out at a scree field with our first views up at the ridge. Larches!!

The further we went, the more fall foliage and views.  We still had morning shade but the colors were beautiful. And we had it all to ourselves!  If wondering about water, all the sources were on the Chikamin Tie for our trip.

We reached the junction with the Upper Mad River Trail at 4 miles and 6200 feet.  We talked about how the waypoint he was looking for seemed to be down from the Garland Peak Trail which ran parallel to Chikamin Tie.  Maybe we could access it from there?

So, we turned left on Upper Mad River which was a lovely relatively level stroll through green, yellow and red meadows and forest. There were a few strange burnt circles, my hubby thinks they were controlled burns of some kind.  There was no noticeable water in Three Creek.

The junction with Shetipo (which leads down to the Entiat River Trail area) was in a mile and we stopped for a snack. This is where bikes lose their privileges and the Garland Peak Trail heads up onto the ridge for Garland Peak. The trail maintenance also ends here so we had trees to navigate and the trail was faint in spots. We also heard our first sounds of motorbikes coming up Chikamin but far out in the distance.

There were more larches and more open views out across at Chikamin Ridge. In half a mile, there was a viewpoint out at the Entiat Valley where we had been a few weeks before.  A little further on we could see Glacier Peak to our left.

In another mile or so we could now see where the fire damage was.  The flames had eaten a part of the trail and most of the saddle before Shetipo Peak (about 6.9 miles in to our trek). We were able to carefully scramble Shetipo and there was one small corner of the summit unscarred for taking in views of the Entiat side. It was interesting to see where the fire had traveled and what had been left unscathed.

Walking just a little past Shetipo, we took a spur out onto a small point to the left (7.1 miles), it was clear this was where the geocache was supposed to be. Well, before the fire anyway.  The whole point was toasted black and had, in fact, been cleared for a helo pad. The geocache was metal so my hubs expected to still find it but he thinks maybe some firefighters may have taken it as a souvenir (like the cast iron frying pan we retrieved from the top of Shetipo).

From here, we had the option of returning back on the Garland Peak Trail or cutting down from the burnt knob to meet up with the Chikamin Tie Trail.  I wasn’t so sure but it would supposedly mean a shorter distance and we would be back on the road towards Chelan sooner so we did some searching for what might be a boot path but was probably more of a game trail as we headed down the slope in line with our GPS tracks and Chikamin Creek.

Looking back, it would have been a shorter time to take the trail as we dealt with a sooty slope littered with downed trees and the occasional wasp nest.  The creek was overgrown with slide alder and I don’t know if it was better to stay on the steep slope next to it (my husband’s choice) or drop down into it (my choice).  Despite the frustration and a few curse words, we arrived back on the Chikamin where the geocache had originally told us to turn left (.75 miles from the trailhead). Clearly there used to be a social trail here but it is long overgrown and torched by fire.

This was a really beautiful hike on the Upper Chikamin Tie and Mad River, Garland Peak Trails and if we had had more time it would have been fun to continue on the ridge to Garland Peak or even as far as Larch Lakes.  I wouldn’t want to come on a windy day with all the dead trees for sure!  We only saw a handful of bikes the whole day.