Bikes for thornton lake approach?

[JoshK]

I can't remember, but are bikes useful for the road section of the thornton lakes approach? I remember somebody talking about them, but maybe it was to say it is too overgrown for it to be useful

[klenke]

I remember reading a park bulletin saying there had been much windfall damage on the road/trail (the trail starts out as a road). You might want to call the Marblemount R.S. about this.

 

If there is no windfall on the trail, then you can bike the road/trail for about 2 miles to the point where it leaves the old road and begins going steeply through the woods. There are water bars and ditches across the road/trail at a frequent enough duration to at least be exasperating because not all are ridable.

 

All told (not including windfall considerations), it would be quicker to use a bike. How much quicker? I'll say 1 hour (max).

[JoshK]

Thanks Paul. How could you save 1 hour in only 2 miles? 2 miles only takes 40 minutes to walk.

[klenke]

You're right. That's why I put "max" in parentheses. That's the longest it would take.

 

But then...

It may be only two miles (the first mile is downhill to Thornton Creek, the second mile is uphill), but it seemed to take an hour for us with heavy packs. That's two hours going both ways. If you could bike twice as fast then you could possibly save an hour. Yet, all those temporary stops to push your bike through the unridable water bars will slow you down.

[JoshK]

Gotcha...makes sense now. Sounds like I'll be leaving the pedal powered device at home.

[magellan]

There were a dozen windfalls in the first half mile when I did it just about a year ago. After the stream crossing it's a great run.

[Blake]

Biking downhill (especially on old road beds or trails with bad visibility) while wearing a moderately heavy pack is very fun. Any little dip in the road at all, and you take off.

[JoshK]

Well, after doing this I would say all in all it was close to a wash, but I think the bikes would be worth it if you are interested in saving all the time you can. First off, the road is closed 3/4 mile from the trailhead due to, yes, yet another road washout. After that you can ride about 1 1/2 miles of pretty easy terrain (only a couple pieces of windfall) until you get to a major washout that would be a major bitch to carry a bike over. Leaving the bikes at that point is probably your best bet. I would say it's worth having the bike more for the fun factor (assuming you have a somewhat reasonable pack weight) than the time savings.

[ashw_justin]

So it's around 3 miles, and most of it is bikeable. In fact if you are really aggro with the bike you can haul it another 1500 v.f. or so up the trail to the actual Rec. Area boundary, so that you can bike down the switchbacks.

 

But for the 3 mile flat stretch, you'd probably go about three times faster with a bike so you'd save about 30+ minutes each way. That is, until they fix the road.

[pc]

Just got back yesterday from The Thorton Lakes area. The road is totaly washed out in two places on the old road/trail. Bothj washouts are at the point where the road/trail makes a 150 degree turn. Also there are numerous little stress that would be a bitch to deal with.

 

One nice thing is that the road is repaired to the trailhead now, as of yesterday..........

[JoshK]

jc, were you the party of three watched crossing the glacier around 9am?

[pc]

Yea, not the best of conditions on the NE ridge of Triumph.

I bet it was a bitch to haul you ski gear all that way. What did you guys end up climbing/skiing???

[JoshK]

That knoll next to the col. Probably about 1000 feet. Brining the skis was a dumb mistake. For some reason we thought that traverse would have been soft enough to warrant skis. Not sure what we were thinking. When we got to the col we saw the snow on the ridge and that was enough to kill the remainder of our already fading enthusiasm. So isntead we just camped at the col and turned it into a sightseeing trip.

 

Did you summit?

[pc]

No, there was too much snow on the north side and on the ridge. All of the holds and cracks were filled with snow and ice, pro placement was a bit interesting. Also we realized that it was going to take a very long day to summit and rap off. So we decided to rappel and grunt our way out. As it was, we made it back to Seattle around 11p. That approach was brutal. Also how did you like the fact that the raod was open on the hike out. Thankfully we ran into someone at the trailhead who drove us to our car.

 

Cheers

[JoshK]

We got back at 2pm and they were still working on the road. Damn...that 3/4 of a mile felt long after that approach!

 

Sorry you didn't summit. I guess that justifies our wimpyness somewhat