Meadow Creek Trail to Fortune Ponds and Pear Lake

Miles:  16.5 miles RT

Elevation Gain/Highest:  3,373/5,230ft

Map: Green Trails Benchmark No 144

My favorite places to stop post hike with friends are: Grilla Bites, Route 2 Taproom and Grazing Place, Good Brewing Company, River House Cafe, Espresso Chalet, Gustav’s, Yodelin’s Broth Company, South, Dan’s Food Market,  or just Pack A Cooler. You can learn more about these places in my Must Hike Must Eat Eating Out Guide.

Find out current conditions and as always, practice Leave No Trace.  Pretty please.

Hike Details:

Meadow Creek Trail to Fortune Ponds and Pear Lake is one of two of my favorite trails as it accesses my favorite places: Pear Lake and Benchmark Mountain.  When I first started going here, it was just to Pear. Then, I discovered I could get to Benchmark as a part of the trip and it made it even more lovely.  Meadow Creek is a easy going river valley walk up to Fortune Ponds, a tranquil stop in its own right. From here, it is a set of steep switchbacks up and over Frozen Finger Gap to Pear Lake and the Pacific Crest Trail 8.5 miles in.  You can scramble Fortune Mountain or over a ridge to Peach Lake or head north or south on the PCT to wherever you might wish to go!  Odds are you will find me making a trip here every year…

My hikes:

7/26/2020 (16.5 miles plus 12 more for Benchmark)

10/12/2018, 14.5 miles RT

After spending the morning slogging up the trail to Rock Mountain, I made my way down and over to the trailhead for Meadow Creek and weighed my options.  I wanted to get to the saddle overlooking Pear Lake and back again in one night and hopefully get home at a reasonable time Saturday night.  So, even though is was already 5:30 pm, I threw on my pack and headed up the trail with my headlamp ready to go.  Some habits die hard after miles hiking the Pacific Crest Trail.

I wouldn’t normally do this with sunset quickly approaching at 6:21 pm but I have hiked this trail multiple times and had confidence that if I didn’t make it to the established campsite 4.3 miles away, I would be able to find a stealthy spot along the way.

Meadow Creek is a mellow hike starting out in the forest at just under 2,000 ft, slipping into the Big Sky Wilderness within a quarter mile and then running along the valley wall above Meadow Creek in and out of trees and talus.  My worst fear was running into wildlife at this hour so as I donned my headlamp I began talking out loud to anything that might hear me.

I crossed into Henry M. Jackson Wilderness at 2.35 miles into my hike without fanfare.  Not sure why I took a picture because I have multiple of this particular sign.  Maybe because this time it was in the dark?

I must admit I am stubborn, anyone who has been following my blog for awhile knows this well.  In fact, the last time I was on this trail I was persistent enough to lose some skin.  But not because I chose to hike in the dark.

So, instead of stopping at a few reasonably flat spots along the way, I made it all the way to the campsite near Fortune Pass at 3,900 ft and 4.5 miles from the car where the trail crosses back over Meadow Creek again and set up camp in the dark.  Not a first for me.  It wouldn’t have done any good to take pictures so here’s a snap of GAIA.

It was freezing but I had come prepared with extra layers and a down comforter in addition to my sleeping bag.  I threw my food bag up on a bear line, also not the first time I have done that in the dark.  I was tucked in nicely by 8 pm hoping not to hear anything rustling around me.  Last time I was here there had been bear prints in the snow.

I awoke at 5:30 am to crystallized condensation on my tent walls and quickly packed up to hike up to Fortune Ponds.  Since I knew I was only going up as a day hike, I left my tent and sleep gear set up in hopes that the morning sun would melt and dry it while I was away. One could hope, right?

Hiking at 6:10 am with headlamp in commission again, I set up through the forest headed into the dark but only for about 40 minutes because the sun was soon coming up in the sky and lighting my way.  I was careful at about .3 miles from camp where the trail switchbacks up but looks more like a creek bed. Someone had put down plenty of branches to keep me from continuing straight.  Looks like you should go straight, right?

I reached the meadows around Fortune Ponds at 4,750 ft by 7 am, another 1.5 miles from the trailhead for a total of 6 miles up the trail.  From here it is another half mile to the junction with the old Cascade Crest Trail and the campsites at Fortune Ponds.

Everything was frozen and crunchy!

This is one of my favorite places to hike into and it didn’t disappoint.   Despite hearing faint gunshots off in the distance heralding the beginning of deer season, I took some time to enjoy the painting-like quality of the water’s surface and the surrounding landscape.  I also made use of the privy that I couldn’t find last time I was here because it was buried in snow.  There isn’t one at the campsite at Fortune Pass.

Now onto the saddle overlooking Pear Lake.  I crossed the talus field under the ridge to reach the tiny set of switchbacks climbing up.  The view at the saddle itself is not much to brag about but the mountains I could see as I ascended are a great lineup, including Rock Mountain where I had stood the day before.  Jove, Union, Labyrinth, Mastiff and Howard lined the horizon as it turned pink with the early morning sunrise.

I made it to the ridge at 5,230 ft a little after 8 am and crossed over and down a short ways until I had a view of Pear Lake.  I have to say this is one of my favorite places in the world and even though I was here just in July to watch the sun go down, it never gets old.  I enjoyed breakfast before making my way back down to my tent.

I will note here that as I walked through the meadows of Fortune Ponds picking frozen blueberries I was surprised to encounter, the gunshots rang out much closer than before.  Even though I was wearing some hunter orange, I found myself calling out to make sure they knew I was there.  It was a bit unnerving and I did pass 6 more hunters on their way in before I made it back to my car.

I was back at camp by 10:30 am and most of my tent had defrosted.  I stuck it on top of my backpack for the trip out so I could give it a good drying at home.  The the rest of my hike was uneventful except for the fact that I could see everything now and there was no shortage of fall colors!

6/16/2017

Starting out on the Meadow Creek trail at 4pm with plans to see how far I could get up to the PCT.  I knew there would be snow, so I was prepared with ice axe and spikes, as well as not coming back until Sunday.

The trail was in fairly good shape in the Wild Sky section, mostly huckleberry and ferns beginning to encroach on the trail after snow has melted off.  I caught a few glimpse of the sky and mountain at a mile and a 1.5 miles in, otherwise it was in the woods.  Startled a bear just after that, only saw his black rump take off away from me.

Snow began in patches on the trail about 3.16 miles in, but there was enough trail to follow for about 15 minutes.  After that, the rest of the trail was under snow until the pass at 5 miles in.  I tried following the creek as much as possible but after a few deep postholes into marshy goodness that thoroughly soaked my feet, I headed up slope and with GAIA’s help aimed for the pass over streams, washes and downed logs.  I knew what I was looking for, a bunch of cut downed logs that my friend Gwen (who wrote the trail description for this trail here on WTA) had helped log out recently.  If you ever find yourself off trail, always look for cut logs! 

By the time I made it to Fortune Pass at 3900ft just before 7:30pm, I was tired and a bit beat up from having slipped several times in my battle with the slope.  There is a campsite here, but it was completely under snow.  And when I say pass, there is no view here.  It is just where the creek runs the two slopes before dropping off on the other side.  I wanted to make sure I got to this point, because this is where the trail takes you up the slope and to the ponds.  Missing it could have meant not making my destination tonight and sleeping on the slope of the mountain.  I guess I could have stopped here, but I wasn’t quite ready to give in for the day yet.  Plus, seeing bear track just a few hundred yards before had me pressing on.

Interesting enough, up from the pass the trail was bare and I was able to be on actual tread for the switchbacks that take you up and start you on the contour trail around to the ponds.  If you haven’t been here before, there is one tricky spot about 4080ft where the trail switchbacks up but it looks like just a stream coming down (the water is really coming down ALL the streams along the trail right now).

Soon, though, the trail was gone and I was plotting a course on the wooded slope towards the ponds just trying to stay as level as possible on snow that was 3-4 feet deep.  It has begun to sprinkle back before the pass and now it was turning into more foggy low level clouds.  I knew that where the slope leveled out the trail was more open, so I kept looking for areas with less trees but the same compass heading. Despite the waning sun, things did start to look a bit more familiar.

Around 8:45pm and almost 7 miles in, I could see the wide open area that is Fortune Ponds.  The sight was rather eerie with the dark pines lining the barely melted out pond and dark fingers the only indication of where the water’s edge was.  Thankfully, I have been here several times and knew to keep pretty wide.  Making my way along the left hand side, I was able to see a bit of trail freed from winter where it ran next to the trunk of the trees.

I made camp here and took up the rest of my journey in the morning (I write about that in the link below).  So, the next day my story continues:

There was no trail to follow due to the snow, just my memory from previous trips and GAIA for reassurance (I had Green Trails and Halfmile’s PCT maps in my pack just in case).  This was my third time taking this route to the PCT and I knew where it went in general.  But if you have ever visited your favorite summer trail offseason, you know snow changes everything.  Especially when it covers the gully that usually has tight switchbacks up to a ridge.  Water running down underneath that snow makes for hazardous route finding, not to mention a slick ride down if you don’t get it right.

I made my way around and after a few minutes came to gully on my right that looked to be a safe route up.  Inside I knew I was just a bit early but there appeared to be a ridge above that could at least give my a clue as to what I was getting myself into.  It turned out to be the route to the upper Fortune pond at 4855ft, which was even more ice crested than the one below.  It sits nestled at the foot of Fortune Mountain.

What this side trip meant, however, was that I needed to make my way laterally and up to meet the “trail” to the saddle in the ridge above Pear Lake.  I already knew that to go up the ridge straight from here would not give me views of Pear.  I had a general sense of how to do this, I just hoped the gullies I would have to cross to get there weren’t too sketchy.

So, the next 50 minutes had me crossing over gullies onto treed rock bands, repeating until I was below the saddle I wanted. I eventually made it up to the ridge at 5277ft and the view of Pear Lake that I love.  The lake sits at just over 4800ft and had just barely begun thawing out.  If you want an idea of what it looks like on the PCT and north of Stevens Pass right now, this is it.  The trail from here descends in a few long switchbacks over a large bouldered talus field and circumnavigates the lake to the north towards the outlet where it joins the PCT and runs about 50 feet below where the lake water flows out under more large boulders.

I walked the snow covered ridge back and forth and found a good resting stop to take in the amazing North Cascades.  I debated continuing from here down to the lake, but honestly, the thought alone of coming back up was exhausting.  I also knew that even if I made it around the lake to the junction with the PCT I would end up stopping there as the trail is a set of steep switchbacks to a gully.  There was a slight possibility that section was more thawed out but based on what I was seeing I didn’t think it was worth the gamble.  I decided I had already had all the adventure I wanted to by myself. Plus, I still had to get down from here back to camp.

I opted to make my way directly down from here closer to the actual trail.  This turned to be pretty efficient, even though I could neither glissade nor plunge step.  I didn’t want to run the risk of hitting a tree or postholing into the water I could hear running underneath in several places.  I stuck closer to the rock bands until I ran out of room on the gully where it flowed over a cliff band in a waterfall.  I, then, hopped over one more rock band to another gully heading down and eventually came out where I imagine the trail leaves the flat pond area and makes its way up to the ridge on the trail.  From here I turned west and headed back to camp at Fortune Ponds. For more of this adventure, read What’s A Little Loss Of Skin In Trade For Adventure?

7/24/2016