I got a message from Snohomish County Roads saying that the Mountain Loop Highway was going to open to vehicle traffic on Friday so I made it a priority to hit the Monte Cristo trail and town before the 2024 hiking season got fully underway. I parked at the Deer Creek gate and began the ride with the Levo going by Big Four, the several campgrounds, and trailheads before reaching Barlow Pass. Then I headed on to the road to Monte Cristo and then the single track to the tree trunk bridge. The tree is fully surrounded by water so I needed to cross the river about 30 feet to the north on exposed riverbed.

After that, a short walk to the continuing road, and then the 1/4 mile of dry, river-rock, eroded, wash. The road is ok after that with several trees down to walk over and a couple dry, erosion, creek washes to cross. The mountain bike tires were better than using thinner gravel tires in the larger rock so I was glad I didn't have the gravel bike. One rocky wash caught me off guard and I got stuck in my pedals and tipped over. :-(  What I didn't know was that my truck keys flew out of my pocket when I crashed to the ground!
     I continued on up to Monte Cristo and took my pictures. Then I started back down the road and then down the reclamation road, or trail bypass, navigating over a dozen of winter tree falls. About 3 miles down, I noticed I had no truck keys! Crap, I had to turn around to look for my keys. The pocket was deep but a crash could send them up and out. My only 'crash' was the darn rock wash attempt so I had to go all the way back there and walk around the 5-6" rock. I started looking where my hip landed and continued spiralling slowly away from that spot. Four minutes later, there were my keys on top of a rock!. PHEWWW! Now back to returning to my truck. Going over/under all the tree falls again, and then again, was a royal pain in the ass but I found the keys.

I didn't see anyone else up there except for two, Costco fat tire E-cyclers who turned around at the log bridge. Many folks were walking from the gate to Big Four. It was a beautiful day and a lucky one for me too! GPS track and pics are here.

You have until Friday to be alone and away from the cars.