Thought I'd share this one, even though I am usually too lazy to post TRs. Verdant Pass has been on the list for a while now, and it is a bit confusing to get to.
The first two pictures show the turn into verdant pass from Astoria.
Next few are from inside the tree lines. Quite a few fallen trees along the way. And the trail gets very narrow with branches blocking the way in places. The final stretch to get out of the trees is steep, and has hard ground. Very slippery when you are going down.
This is where it gets confusing. There are at least two "trails" crossing the creek. Follow the path all the way up and you'll come to a dead end. The lake here is what the Copelands are talking about. I had to scramble up a ledge to see where the trail leads to inside the meadow. You can also see the ridge where we stopped.
This part you can entirely avoid by going on the lower trail all the way. I had to get down from the ledge and bushwhack a little.
Into the pass and there are no more trails after a while. You have to navigate the bogs and what not. There is a river/stream across the valley. Follow the stunted tress and not the grass for easier crossings. (Common sense.) We stopped at the ridge shown in the distance from the last set of photos. You can see Edith, Chevron, the ice fields, whirlpool etc. We think it's about 26km-30km trip if you arrived at where we were, depending on route.
Didn't see any major animals until this point. I thought we'd see a bear or something because of the vegetation and marmots. We were going to ridge walk to the other side and walk back. We ran across a baby male caribou. He had zero fear, and came in within 8 meters, also stomped foot and lowered head for couple seconds. Thoughts of headlocking endangered charging caribou, and making it on the park ranger blacklist ensued.
Then mom showed up with us between the two. While exciting, it seemed a little dangerous given there are no trees higher than me all around for couple kilometers.
Luckily the little guy eventually went to mom and had a suckle. We gunned it back to the trailhead in less than 3 hours.