Mount Hardy: Rainy Pass to Swamp Creek Pullout

We left our house  in Mazama around 7:30 a.m. and dropped a car at the large pullout on Hwy 20 where Swamp Creek goes under the highway. Then, we headed back to the Rainy Pass trailhead and started heading north on the Pacific Crest Trail towards Cutthroat Pass. It was a brisk morning, but great walking with a light jacket on. We took a quick break in the sun at Cutthroat Pass and enjoyed the view towards Silver Star. Heading north from Cutthroat Pass we turned the corner to the awesome view of Tower Mountain, Golden Horn and Mount Hardy above the Swamp Creek drainage from Granite Pass. It was easy and fast walking to Methow Pass on the well maintained trail.

At Methow Pass we followed a somewhat well defined path to the end of the bench at 7,000 feet south east of the Mount Hardy summit. From here, we turned directly north and headed mostly straight up towards the ridge line that runs off the summit of Mount Hardy on loose sand scree. Eventually we hit the ridge line and followed that to the summit making a few Class 2 moves along the way. After just enough time on the summit to get cold we started heading down be retracing our route along the ridge line and then eventually turning directly south and heading straight down the broad sand and scree slope. We noticed a group of 4 heading up, but didn’t end up crossing paths with them on our way down.

After hitting the end of the open ridge line, we turned slightly southeast down into open burned forest that was pretty steep. This led us down into the forest and eventually we hand railed Swamp Creek out to the highway with a a few small sections of tight trees, light bushwhacking and a crossing of Swamp Creek. A beautiful fall day out. It took us  7 hours to hike from Rainy Pass to the Swamp Creek pullout.