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Day Hike - Huckleberry Mountain

High lonesome in the North Cascades

Brian Carpenter Brian Carpenter
July 21, 2018
  • Road suitable for all vehicles

  • Trail conditions vary from mile to mile. Some are in good shape, some areas of blow down (nothing major), some area of mud, some areas of erosion/sloughing, some brushy areas, some areas on the ridge where the trail can be hard to find. Only a few lingering snow patches. Not really any places to camp on the ridge, too buggy and the only water is in damp, muddy areas that have clouds of mosquitoes.

Goldilocks day: not too hot, not too cold, just right. Saw one other person all day. Trail is relatively long (6 miles) and all uphill, but not too steep of a grade. Trail conditions are not too bad if you don't mind a 'rough' trail. A few signs of volunteer maintenance on the lower trail.

Views from the meadow at 5400' were great except Glacier Peak had a cloud cap on top. We tried to explore the trail beyond the 5400' meadow and made it about a half mile before turning around. From the meadow the trail descends about 400' into the trees and contours along the hillside to avoid some cliff bands on your left. The trail can be tricky to locate in here as it is obviously not maintained or used much. The trail starts back up and hits a bench with a swampy meadow in it. According to my GPS the trail continued directly up the gully in front of us to the true summit of Huckleberry, but we saw no trail up this gully. Instead, the trail seemed to skirt around the swampy area to the right and possibly head up a different gully. Turned around at this point and headed back. 8.25 hours to do 13 miles and 4800' of elevation gain.