Easy Pass-Fischer Basin-Thunder Creek

Dan, Linda, and I did the Easy Pass-Fischer Basin-Thunder Creek trail in the North Cascades National Park on Sunday. We lucked into a bluebird of a day, and some of the very best the North Cascades has to offer.
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Our route was approximately 28 miles, a point-to-point trail, which we covered very casually in eight hours. There is a rather steady 3.5 mile climb at the start, over Easy Pass and up to 6500 feet, followed by 24 miles of gradual descent. Distance, time, and effort are not good measures of the day—the run is sort of a cupcake. Better measures are the sights and the experience, as the trail travels through the heart of the Park, with several glaciers to see up high, old growth forests to run through down low, and a host of goodies in between.
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The autumn colors made it easy to forget the early morning cold as we ascended Easy Pass. Brilliant red, maroon, and burgundy fields of dying huckleberry bushes. A dusting of last week's snow hanging on mountain faces. The rare subalpine larches I've been hoping to see, in full autumn gold, perched on cliffs above.
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This was my first time on top of Easy Pass with unclouded views, and I counted a semi-circle of 9 peaks crowning the Fischer Basin, with glaciers hanging on the opposite slopes, and the creekline descent into the Basin visible for miles, through open meadows.
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After a good twenty minutes roaming the Pass, we dropped into the Fischer Basin, initially descending relatively steep switchbacks, and soon hitting the Basin, as the trail parallels Fischer Creek. I stopped at Fischer Creek to refill, and had to break ice to fill my bottle.
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Downward. Eventually the high bush turns to forest. Mushrooms start popping out, in all sorts of varieties. Purple was my favorite of the day. Ferns. Downed logs, nursing moss, young trees, and all sorts of fungi, as they decay. Dan pointed out Devil’s Club, a thorny bush, which could do a number on a shin. The trail is fully clear, due to the hard work of trail crews.
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Later, we came across technical stream crossings, cedar plank boardwalks, the periodic huge glacier high in the distance, grove after grove of big trees, and always a clear stream nearby. The trail was magical, cutting for miles through bright green moss. Think Lord of the Rings.
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Roughly 18 miles in, we hit Junction, an important trail intersection within the heart of the park. We turned northwest down the Thunder Creek Valley, nine or ten miles to go. We weren’t really that tired, and it was still early afternoon. We sat at the campground for a bit, and talked about walking it out, just to take things in better.
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We ran. More big trees. Cedars a thousand years old. For most of the day, I trailed Dan and Linda, which was kind of cool because I would watch them curl around these giants, giving the trees increased perspective.
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Thunder Creek feeds the emerald green Diablo Lake, and you can see the green water at McCallister Creek, a glacier fed creek which drains into Thunder. The green has to do with mineral content. Log bridges. As we neared the end of the trail, ever lower, more and more deciduous trees—maples, poplars, alders—in fall colors. The trail widens, and in the last mile we saw some of our biggest cedars of the day.
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A few photos of our adventure are below, and I’ve put up another gallery here. The photos are nice, but they do not do justice to the trip. This is one of the better trails I've run, perhaps because of the fall colors, or maybe it was the moss. We were fortunate--this was probably the last weekend of the year in the high country, and the sky was blue.