Alpine Lakes Wilderness

After some challenging trips the past few years, it was time to turn it down a notch. This year’s trip was mellow by comparison: 100% on trail, low daily mileage, heavy packs with unnecessary gear. A nice little adventure, if you will.

We hiked about 30 miles over four days through the Alpine Lakes Wilderness in Washington, mostly along Section J of the PCT. We started from Snoqualmie Pass and hiked north, exiting via Pete Lake.

The trip began as trips often do: with a delayed flight. Mike’s flight was delayed for a couple hours and he ended up arriving in the early afternoon. Those of us on earlier flights killed time by eating at “the worst Denny’s in America” (according to one of the reviews—in reality it was pretty good).

The delay put us under a bit of a time crunch. The plan was to drive straight from the airport to the Kendall Katwalk trailhead at Snoqualmie Pass and start hiking right away. If everything ran on schedule we’d arrive at the trailhead around noon, but with the delay we didn’t get there until around 3pm. And we had to drop a second car on the other end at the Pete Lake trailhead. Our first group (me, Sam, Ben, and Anjani) started hiking around 3:15 and our second group (Mike and Siyang) didn’t get started until 5:30. With 7 uphill miles until camp, that meant we had to hike fast!

We had beautiful weather on the drive out, but it turned to drizzly spitting rain as we started hiking. The rain didn’t last long, but it remained windy and chilly the rest of the day, with the sun poking out only occasionally and briefly. Not quite the idyllic Pacific Northwest summer weather we were hoping for.

Despite the chilly weather, the trail was excellent. This section of trail is known as the Kendall Katwalk. It starts out with a nicely maintained trail through an old forest, then gradually opens up with nice views into the surrounding peaks and valleys as you climb. Finally you turn a corner onto the “Katwalk”—a narrow ridge with spectacular views, and our first real glimpse into the Alpine Lakes Wilderness.

From there we continued another mile and a half to Ridge Lake, where we set up camp. Mike and Siyang arrived just before sunset as we were starting to cook dinner. They made great time with their late start and must have practically jogged up the trail.

Ridge Lake was a very nice place to camp, but it was crowded. We camped right next to three other groups, and we saw a bunch more tents on the other side of the trail at Gravel Lake. Popular spot.

Day 2 promised spectacular views through the heart of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. It somewhat delivered on that promise. Unfortunately, the winds shifted overnight and blew in smoke from some nearby forest fires, blanketing everything in a sheet of white haze. It certainly didn’t ruin our day, as we still had good views of the nearby peaks. But we could see how spectacular it would have been on a clear day. The optimistic spin is that we got to see a unique perspective of the area.

We had a leisurely morning at camp, sleeping in and eating a big breakfast. We didn’t start hiking until 10. The trail immediately climbed up a rocky slope to a nice viewpoint, where we first noticed the smoky haze.

We spent most of the day walking on or just below the ridge line with great views the entire time. We took a pretty leisurely pace. The trail was nicely maintained, but also very rocky in a lot of spots. And it wasn’t terribly steep but it was always up or down, never flat. Notably, this entire stretch of about 8 miles was completely dry. A few of us who didn’t top up water in the morning were pretty thirsty by the end of the day.

Our plan was to follow the unmarked trail to Glacier Lake, camp there, and then climb Chikamin Peak the following day. But shortly after turning towards Glacier Lake, the trail became rugged and very steep. We decided we weren’t up for it and turned around. It looks like it would be a nice spot to go back to another time, though.

Instead of Glacier Lake, we turned at the next trail intersection towards Park Lakes. About a half mile down the Mineral Creek Trail, we reached the lake. We had the whole lake to ourself and it made for a fantastic campsite. We lounged around took the packrafts for a spin (I carried my DIY packraft and Siyang carried his lightweight dinghy with the intention of taking them out on some lakes).

After another lazy morning of sleeping in, most of us started hiking around 9:30. We made good time climbing out from Park Lakes and onto the PCT, and we stopped at a nice viewpoint to wait for the stragglers. There, we had our first view of Spectacle Lake.

The hike down to Spectacle Lake was nothing special: about bunch of switchbacks through the woods. But the lake itself is, well, a spectacle. The lake is huge and irregularly shaped, with lots of little alcoves to explore. We stopped at the lake for a long lunch and some of us went for a swim. The thrill seekers among us (Ben and Siyang) jumped off some cliffs into the lake.

Spectacle Lake would be an excellent spot to camp, but there were signs saying it was closed for camping while we were there. It’s definitely worth an excursion to check it out.

Getting out of Spectacle Lake was no picnic, though. We took the most direct route northeast from the lake according to my map, which was the Spectacle Lake Trail or the Old Spectacle Lake trail, or some combination of the two. To call it a “trail” would be an overstatement. There was a winding network of footpaths around the lake, then the trail mostly vanished in the woods, and eventually we found a narrow, loose, and very steep trail down through a recent burn zone. We survived, but it wasn’t pleasant, and it would have been hopeless without a GPS map. In hindsight we should have backtracked and taken the PCT. It would have been slightly longer, but surely much easier and faster. Our way took us over an hour to go less than a mile.

After the treacherous descent of the (Old) Spectacle Lake Trail, it was mostly smooth sailing the rest of the way. The trail flattened out and went through a burn zone with tons of wildflowers before entering a forest. There was one nontrivial stream crossing at Lemah Creek along the Pete Lake Trail. I wouldn’t call it dangerous, but it was just fast and deep enough to make you think before crossing. I walked across a very sketchy log, and mostly everyone else carefully walked across on rocks. Mike trudged straight through in his boots.

We had considered hiking all the way out the trailhead and finishing on day 3, but it was getting late enough that we decided to camp at Pete Lake. The decision was made even easier when we came across a phenomenal campsite. Wide open, flat ground, tree, beautiful view of the sunset over the lake—the best campsite of the trip, and one of the best I’ve ever had. (It’s worth noting that we took the last (easternmost) campsite at the lake. The earlier sites weren’t nearly as nice.)

The following morning we hiked the easy 4 miles out to the Pete Lake Trailhead. And with that, we wrapped up a fun and successful trip!