So the White Chuck road looked promising but ended abruptly at a bulldozed barrier just beyond a turnabout with a campfire ring... no signs, no clue as to why it closed. Walked beyond the barrier for about a mile, no slides or washouts. Just before the closure point I had taken a right turn at a "y", so I decided to explore the left branch of that. That drive looped me back north to the Suiattle River trailhead at a point just before it's closure. {I should be more specific about the road names/numbers here - future editing task...]
Returned to Darrington library, I did find ref's on the web concerning these closures. The Suiattle River TH would be reopening later this fall. The White Chuck trailhead is being permanently de-commissioned. There was a third possible approach to the PCT from this (west) side - the Sauk River TH, although it reached the PCT only about 20 miles north of Stevens Pass, not very optimal for my intent to split the 120 mile section into shorter hikes. It being Sunday evening I decided to hang around town til the Ranger station reopened Monday morning, and just ask whetehr that was open, rather than waste more gas.. Headed for a nice FS CG just a few miles from town that would have cost me a Sr Pass discounted $4, but it was full. Wandered across the road to a FS route and overnighted at the first turnout on that just a few 100yds from the main road. Even better.
Talked to the ranger Monday morning, learning that the Sauk River TH was indeed open and the only waay to the trail from here. The Forecast called for rain within two days, and I had no other plans, so I decided to wait out the weather essentially at the Darrington library, which had ample table-space with power for me to work with my laptop. There was a decent grocery store and a nice little bookstore/coffee house, and a small RV campground with 6minute showers for $2, and a laundromat with quite inexpensive rates. Very picturesque Mts surrounded the town. A very livable small town.
Forecast gradually changed, pushing off the rain later into the week. Oh well, I was busy finally taking a close look at my tracklogs, Had found a good GPX file editor allowing me to easily split the month-long GPS log files into manageable files each covering just one day. I still do have lots of gaps in my logs, though with the two logging methods I was now using (BCNav app on my phone and the Holux track logger) fewer than I had feared. Still need to find or write a script that would allow me to inerpolate the picts taken during my log-gaps based on time/distance along Halfmile's published track of the trail.
So today the forecast called for decreasing rain and sunny weather this weekend (though then another low arriving by Tuesday. I was ready at the trailhead this morning, but it was pouring rain worse than at any time the last two days. So I decided to drive the 20 miles back into town to do this and a few other loose ends that my "packing/todo" list had revealed.
But rain or no, I'm determined to be hiking his afternoon for a week - actually longer, a week of solid hiking, starting from the N. Fork Sauk River TH that meets the PCT after about 10 miles about 85 miles south of Rainy Pass at WA SR20. I'll hade the option to do a "layover" in Stehekin about 20 miles short of Rainy Pass, which I may do if the weather is bad. At Rainy Pass I've stashed my bicycle, and I'll have probably a full day bicycle ride west of the Pass down to the town of Concrete, where I'll catch some local buses to Seattle & then an Amtrak bus to Stevens Pass on WA SR 2, where I'll have another two maybe three day hike back to my car. This will take me into next month.
I then still hope to do the "two" sections of Stevens Pass, one to Snoqualmie Pass on I90, then from I90 to Chinook Pass on WA SR ??? northeast of Mt Rainier where I left off a few weeks ago before skipping to the "border" (Rainy Pass to the border) which I did a week ago.
That would leave about a 60 mile section just north of the Colombia Ruver Gorge to finish off Washington.
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