Trail Review: Boulder River

Boulder River - May 27th

8 Miles
500ft Elevation Gain
North Cascades (near Darrington)
Good for Dogs
NW Forest Pass
Rating: Easy

Our hike on Boulder River started off pretty dramatically and ended... nicely, though it was a bit anticlimactic. Chris was ill so I ended up hiking with our friend Katie. The drive to the trailhead was quite lovely. I always love driving out to the North Cascades, I think they are the pretties mountains I've ever seen. People always gush about the peninsula. Feh. Give me the North Cascades any day of the week. See (below)? That's just barely getting towards them, they get so much better!

However, when we got to the trail head there were at least 10 Search and Rescue vehicles. The drive isn’t a short one from Seattle (about 1 hour 15 minutes), so we were super worried that we wouldn’t be able to hike.

As we got closer to the trail a woman informed us to please make sure we yielded to search and rescue, since they should be on their way back and carrying equipment. She then walked over to their FOOD TRUCK to get a breakfast burrito.

I will let that sink in. 

Search and Rescue has a food truck. With breakfast burritos! This sparked an entire conversation between Katie and I about how we would love to join Search and Rescue, except we don’t have climbing skills, helicopter piloting experience, or a desire to possibly have to get out of bed before 7am. We concluded we could not join Search and Rescue, but that breakfast burritos are delicious.

After that things were pretty much routine. We ran into aforementioned Search and Rescue personnel and they informed us they’d been out since 2am helping some stranded hikers. Further proof that Katie and I could not get breakfast burritos.

The hike was nice. There are a couple of nice waterfalls along the way and you never stray too far from the river itself, which I also find keeps me relaxed. I will say the trail conditions were not ideal, the trail was VERY muddy. Not “oh dear I might get some mud on my boots muddy,” more like Never Ending Story “ARRRTEX!!!” muddy. The grade is fairly level and we didn't need to take breaks at all going in or coming out. Though there was some route planning involved on how to avoid the majority of the mud.

The hike itself ends sort of weirdly. There’s no real conclusion, no this-is-the-place moment. It just sort of stops and you get to sit by the river have some snacks and turn around a slog it back. If you’re lucky there will be some crazy ass mist that is just hanging out over the river though. Which is pretty cool.

WTA Link