Today was a beautiful sunny day in Leavenworth. I headed for 4th-of-july-creek with meetup group. Its a not so easy hike, so I decided to not take heavy pack. I needed to keep pace with rest of the group. This hike starts out steep, gaining lot of elevation in first 3.5 miles. After that you enter the ghost forest and its quite flat from here. After a mile or so of ghost forest, you climb up to Icicle Ridge with lots of switchbacks. There is some snow towards the very end, but its melting fast and was not a problem at all. I did not need to use my stabilizers also.
I do not know why, but I was quite exhausted in the beginning. I just could not make my legs move any fast on the steep uphills. Had to dump some of the water in the middle to keep up with the group.
The views were just amazing. Clear blue skies. First we saw the Cashmere range, then Enchantments. The hill sides were full of wild-flowers rigth from start. At places we were literally switch-backing through fields of flowers, mostly purple lupines. We also spotted a few tiger littles and bunch of unknown purple, while and yellow flowers. There were also some pink wild roses. After 4 miles, you enter the ghost forst, its a bunch of tress burnt down in a forest fire a while ago, it looks creept and ghostly. When you reach the Icicle Ridge, there were views of North Cascades behind, enchantments and cashmere ranges in front.
Elevation gain - 4800ft
Distance - 11.5 miles
Time - 4:00 hrs up, 3hrs down
Pack weight - 20 lbs
http://picasaweb.google.com/tulika.agrawal/4thOfJulyCreek#
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