16 sep 2025
Trip report: Devil's Dome loop, day 3
Ups and downs and ups and downs
We woke up nice and early for the start of day three, as this was another long 12-miler. Luckily, this meant that we saw the entirety of sunrise, which brought a new set of blue-purple-pink gradients that we didn’t get to see at sunset the previous day. Jack Mountain looks particularly good in this light, I think. Unfortunately, it was also quite cold and this motivated us to get going sooner rather than later. Thus, we bid goodbye to Devil’s Dome and began to descend. The scenery turned from mountain ranges back into forest, and we dipped in and out of the treeline for several miles. The morning sunlight filtered through the trees for a bit before diffusing fully into daylight and bringing on a steady sweat.
Since we had last gotten water on the ascent to the top of the dome, refilling was a priority in the plan for the day. Prior trip reports noted that there is no water for about 6-7 miles until you hit Granite Creek, so we kept our eyes peeled for anything that could possibly pass as the creek. About 6 miles in, we happened to encounter a rather sad trickle across the trail. Given that we were already deep into September, we figured that it could be the remnants of what we were looking for, after having persisted through the entire summer. While the water was cool and refreshing, this creek was so small that it was rather a pain to refill and we spent about thirty minutes replenshing each of our bladders.
Now, here is where I caution any future trailgoers—do NOT stop at the first creek you see and think it is Granite Creek! What we spent half an hour struggling at was nothing more than an anonymous stream, which we regretfully discovered about half a mile later when we hit the actual creek. Granite Creek is not a small trickle but rather a heavy babbling brook that is unmistakeably the water source you want for a quick refill. So, at just about 7 miles in we arrived at Granite Creek, water bladders heavy and Nalgenes filled to the brim. We did at least stop for a bit to rinse off our hands though.
After the creek you descend back into the forest. Now, the previous day presented us the challenge of intense overgrown brush, which drastically slowed us down. While there isn’t quite any dense brush to slow you down on this part of the trail, there are a TON of large blowdowns. Some of them can be circumnavigated by simply hopping over or crawling under, whereas others have already been solved by a nice social trail. Still, every now and then a particularly large tree would block the path and the only way over was to climb very carefully and steadily. Little did we know, this would be an important skill for us later.
As if the incessant blowdowns weren’t enough, the forest trail is, like the ascent up to the dome, extremely steep with very few switchbacks. There are multiple half-mile and longer climbs at 10-20% grade. There are maybe three or four of these forest stairsteppers before you finally hit a clearing at mile 10. Here, you will see a large wall of scree, one that doesn’t seem to hold any semblence of a trail. But in true backpacking fashion, of course the trail goes right up and over the scree wall!
Climbing up this scree wall was extremely sketchy. Climbing down, I can only imagine, would be order of magnitudes sketchier. The wall is sheer and the trail is narrow narrow and the rocks feel less than trustworthy for two legs under a large pack. It was also at this exact moment that I decided we had made the correct decision in doing the trail clockwise rather than counterclockwise, because I am not sure I could have desceneded this wall.
At long last, we reached the top of the scree wall and officially entered Devil’s Park, and for the last
two miles we traversed mostly flat ground through beautiful meadows of long red grass. By the time we hit our campsite, my hip
and ankles were sore and aching, and we moved swiftly to set up camp. While Devil’s Park is overall a nice,
quiet and secluded place to camp, there are several tall trees in the area that are an unpredictalbe number
of days from falling over, so this is something to note when choosing a place to put up a tent. That night,
I slept so well that I thought one of the trees had fallen over and crushed us and I had peacefully passed on
to the other side.
Total mileage: 11.92 mi
Elevation gain: 3,507 ft