32 miles of hiking • 8000' elevation gain • 4 nights
We were supposed to be going Round the Mountain this week, but had to change plans because of the fire. A look at one of the air quality maps indicated that the west side of the WA Cascades would be a good bet so we zeroed in on that area. I recalled TRs from Bosterson and Awildman of this area and the beautiful pictures(thank you for the inspiration!) and shared with my team. We got excited about heading up to the granite wonderland.
Hid a bike near the Necklace Valley TH and drove to the W Fork Foss TH. Started late afternoon on Sunday and hiked up W Fork Foss Creek as the hoards were exiting. We made it to Little Heart Lake for first night's camp.
Things just got better from there. We slowly climbed up past the gorgeous blue waters of Big Heart Lake, passed Angeline Lake and then stopped to swim at a pretty tarn above Chetwoot Lake. From here on it was all scrambling, mostly on giant granite boulder fields which is fun, but challenging with a heavy pack on. We camped at Iron Cap Lake on night two.
We woke to the smell of smoke and watched it creep from the east over the rim of Iron Cap and down into our little glacial basin. Very disconcerting. We packed up and scrambled up to the northern rim of Iron Cap and dropped our packs to head up the ridge to the summit. So much fun to scramble up this without the 35 pound monster on my back! Views not so good, but we spied Tank Lakes, our next destination. It looked so close, but it took us 5 hours to cover the 5 miles to get there following cairns through boulder field after boulder field. Not good for arthritic hip. Spent the night on n amazing perch above Lower Tank Lake with a sunset that went on forever. The smoke had slowly dissipated throughout the day, I guess we can thank Pacific breeezes for that.
Day four, we wandered around the Tank Lakes Basin, eventually down toward Necklace Valley. We considered dropping our packs and heading up to LaBohn Gap but were just too tired after 4 miles of downscrambling. So we just relaxed and enjoyed the real trail and little lakes of the Necklace Valley(Lakes in the W Fork Foss were much bigger and prettier IMHO). Last night camp at Jade Lake.
We were a bit sad and reluctant to leave. The long slog out was interminable, and we got to Seattle just in time for those awesome traffic jams! We blasted the tunes,and allowed our minds to continue wandering in the high country.
