Blackjack Ridge offers exceptional views of the central Cascades — a particularly striking angle on Stuart, with good views of Tahoma (Mount Rainier) and Dakobed (Glacier Peak) — along with a high alpine lake, mid-July wildflowers, and birds.
We did this as a 3-day, 2-night back from the Jack Trout Trailhead. That said, we’d recommend against doing this route as a loop for most backpackers. The Blackjack Ridge Trail between Bootjack Mountain and the Snowall-Cradle Lake Trail is poorly marked, inconsistently mapped across every major source, and requires route-finding experience. More on that below.
Day 1: Jack Trout TH to Bootjack Mountain, Blackjack Ridge, Highchair Mountain, Cradle Lake
From the Jack Trout Trailhead, we followed the Jackpine Trail to its junction with the Blackjack Ridge Trail — mostly level, easy walking, and in great shape. It would have passed quickly except for the huckleberries, which were abundant and demanded frequent stops.
The Blackjack Ridge Trail climbs relentlessly from the junction. But the tread is good and it was clear of blowdowns, so the elevation passed quickly. Once we broke into the burn, we slowed down. Wildflowers were thick, and the open snags had attracted an impressive bird show: hummingbirds working the flowers, mountain bluebirds perched in the dead timber.
Bootjack Mountain has excellent views and would make a worthwhile day hike destination on its own — especially if you time it for huckleberry season and stop along the Jackpine Trail on the way back.
Conflicting maps for Blackjack Ridge Trail to Snowall Cradle Lake Trail
Before continuing, a note on navigation — this is the section that will matter most if you’re planning this route.
Every major map source disagrees about the Blackjack Ridge Trail between Bootjack Mountain and the Snowall-Cradle Lake Trail junction. Green Trails labels it “hard to follow,” and that’s accurate. Previous trip reports warned us about this before we went — particularly the 2023 WTA report from Kidz Won’t Hike, which proved reliable — and we want to pass that forward. Here’s the discrepancies, and what we found to be correct:
Main differences:
Departure point from Blackjack Ridge
- USGS quads and Garmin show the trail dropping off Blackjack ridge after the summit of Bootjack (into Ben Basin)
- Green Trails and Caltopo show the trail dropping off from the junction before the summit of Bootjack (into Dunn Basin)
Crossing the ridge between Ben & Pablo Basins
- USGS, Garmin, and Green Trails have it crossing the ridge around 6250’
- Caltopo has it crossing around around 6400’
Crossing Pablo Creek
- All agree that the trail makes one crossing of Pablo Creek around 5750-5850’
- USGS and Green Trails have it leaving the creek while Caltopo shows it following the south side of the creek (about 300’ away) and then making two further crossings below around 5500’ and 5300’
Junction with the Snowall-Cradle Lake Trail
- USGS and Garmin show the trail reaching the Snowall-Cradle Lake Trail around 5800’
- Caltopo and Green Trails show the trail reaching the Snowall-Cradle Lake Trail around 5400’ (about 1/2 mile from where USGS and Garmin show). Based on past trip reports, we knew this to be accurate.
Given the uncertainty, and a goal of summiting Highchair, our plan was to traverse the ridge to Highchair and then find the trail somewhere along the Ben-Pablo ridge and follow it to the junction.
Our route
From Bootjack, we followed the ridge toward Highchair. The main navigational challenge here is that potential cliff-outs aren’t visible until you’re on them, which means some backtracking. We generally found smoother travel just to the south of the ridge crest. At one point, I think we descended a little too much after clearing an obstacle, which meant we were picking our way through lots of deadfall. Ascending closer to the ridge brought us back to a mostly clear path to travel.
Around the low point in the ridge, we dropped into a larch basin — exactly as the Kidz Won’t Hike report described. In the basin, we passed a small tarn before following a larch ramp back up to the ridge around 6,500′. The last 500′ to the summit was on good footing with easy travel.
The summit of Highchair again offered delightful views, with Adams, Rainier, Glacier, and Baker all visible. I particularly enjoyed the view Stuart, a perspective Kyle and I had not seen on our other hikes.
We could also clearly see a swath of trail cutting across the Ben-Pablo ridge, right around where CalTopo had it. So far, so good!
We retraced our steps to about 6800’ and then traversed across to the trail. On reaching the trail, we had tread that extended east along the ridge. We followed that for a little before it faded out. Turning around and backtracking along the ridge, we then found faint tread heading southwest into Pablo Basin.
For most of the descent, the pattern was the same: find a little tread, lose it to deadfall, pick the most navigable line down, find a few more feet of tread. The bugs were bad in this stretch, which made the frequent pauses to find our next steps even more frustrating.
Around 6000’ feet and 1/10th of a mile north of Pablo Creek, we found either intermittent old trail or animal trail – probably both, given tracks that indicated use by many kinds of animals. We followed this across Pablo Creek, where it again faded. At this point, we were close to where USGS, Green Trails, Caltopo, and Garmin routes all intersected at Pablo Creek, but we every hint of trail faded out in brush. With dwindling daylight, I started considering whether we should find somewhere flat and camp for the night (with good water access) versus continuing to look for the route.
Then, to our relief, we found a flag, which led to another flag. After losing and regaining the route a couple more times, crossing Pablo Creek twice more (consistent with CalTopo), we eventually found an intermittently good tread. That gradually improved and became reliably good as we entered the forest. I am not sure if there were flags heading the other direction from where we found the route, but I did not see one.
We reached junction with the Snowall-Cradle Lake Trail at 5400’, consistent with Green Trails and CalTopo.
A smooth trail brought us the rest of the way to the lake. Along the way, we passed an abandoned trail leading off around 5800’. This is exactly where USGS and Garmin have it, but it’s not clear how far one could follow it.
Bear tracks near the lake were a good motivator for proper food storage.
At the lake, we set up camp in the remaining light. Bugs–both flies and mosquitos–were aggressive at the lake. Lupine, paintbrush, and Dodecatheon jeffreyi were all in bloom. I caught a little bit of evening light on Mount Stuart.
12.2 miles, 5828’, with about 8 hrs moving (~2 hrs spent on summits or at views).
Day 2: Exploring around Cradle Lake
I woke up for sunrise, then went back to sleep. Birds were very active in the morning, and marmots and pikas screamed their warnings from the rocks around the lake.
Around 10:30, we left for a day hike. We went counterclockwise around the lake up the Snowall-Cradle Lake Trail.
At the saddle, we departed the trail on a boot path that led west along the ridge to another saddle below point 6795.
From the second saddle, the boot path descended back toward Snowall Creek before it faded out. We instead sidehilled our way up to just below point 6795. There, we enjoyed good views of Tahoma (Mount Rainier), Mount Daniel, The Cradle, and many more peaks. The last stretch to the top looked scramble-able but on loose grit with enough exposure that we thought better of it.
We returned to the lake and climbed Pt 6909, heading up from the west side of the lake. For the most part, we followed the east/southeast side of the ridge crest, brushy and with a few big steps and places we were pulling ourselves up with hands and arms. Reaching the summit required pushing through a last barrier of trees and brush. The summit had excellent views of the lake and surrounding area that made the effort worth it.
We found a “better” descent on the wide side of the point: descend on the north side of a small saddle, regain the saddle, and then descend to the lake on a stretch between trees and a boulder field. The first part was steep, loose, and slow going to avoid a dangerous fall, but the route finding was at least easy.
4.4 miles, 1496’, about 3.5 hrs moving and 90 minutes spent at views.
Back at camp, we enjoyed Cradle Lake. Wind kept the bugs down until late afternoon, and we alternated between reading in our hammock and wading in the lake. While wading, we noticed there were many salamanders in the shallow parts of the lake.
After dinner, we walked to viewpoints in the woods. Lovely alpenglow on Stuart and Eightmile closed out our day.
Day 3: Cradle Lake to Jack Trout
We got an early start to beat the heat. The trail down was all logged out (thank you!) – fast going, at least until the huckleberries slowed us down again.
The Snowall-Cradle Lake Trail meets the Meadow Creek Trail near a meadow with good flowers and views of Harding and Tucquala Peaks. There was no sign at the junction and it would be easy to miss — if you’re coming from the other direction and have a large flower-filled meadow off to your right, you’ve probably gone too far.
We crossed Meadow Creek on two small logs and forded Jack Creek, which was knee-deep. At Jack Creek there’s a rocky spot on the west side for changing in and out of boots; on the east side, there’s a campsite with good sitting logs once past the mud.
The rest of the hike was also very smooth — completely logged out and easy to move quickly. The last 1.5 miles or so offered fantastic huckleberries
Day 3 mapping was consistent with CalTopo and Green Trails throughout. A few discrepancies with USGS quads and Garmin worth noting:
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- The Snowall-Cradle Lake Trail reached the Meadow Creek Trail about half a mile west-southwest from where the USGS quads have it.
- Rather than the one creek crossing (Jack Creek) shown on the USGS map, there are two: Meadow Creek and Jack Creek.
- The Jack Creek trail runs lower than where USGS says it is, especially around the junction to Jack Ridge.
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9.4 miles, 381’, 4 hours (+~30 minutes stopped at the meadow)
Overall trail conditions (July 2025):
- Jackpine: Great shape
- Blackjack ridge: Great shape to Bootjack Mountain. The section tried to use after Highchair was only good once back in the forest near the Snowall Cradle Lake junction (assuming we found it). It is possible that someone starting from the junction before Bootjack, or from the Snowall-Cradle Lake Junction, would have an easier time finding the route, but I am not sure.
- Snowall-Cradle Lake: Great shape, completely logged out
- Meadow Creek: Great shape, recently logged out, some muddy spots but fine
- Jack Creek: Great shape, recently logged out, a little brushy at human-leg height in places, some muddy spots but fine
Resources:
- As with other hiking in the Pacific Northwest, I recommend the Green Trails maps. If you a looking for a foldable map of this area, it is covered by Alpine Lakes East Stuart Range, WA No. 208SX.
- I was very glad to have CalTopo for this trip.
- See our backpacking packing lists.
