Jim, Lisa, and I ventured into the Alpine Lakes Wilderness for a three day trip. We left on Thursday to try and avoid the crowds. Even with a mid-week start, we got one of the last parking spots at the trailhead. Glad to see people are getting out and enjoying our summer weather.
We headed up the Mineral Creek trailhead near Lake Cle Elum late morning. By mid-day, we were hiking through the miles of brushy trail. Damn that trail gets hot. We were so happy to hit the forested section and then the switchbacks which leads to Park Lakes and the alpine meadows.
By early afternoon, we were rewarded for our efforts with view of the Snoqualmie Mountains.
After many pictures, we headed down the gully / trail to Glacier Lake. We had to stop many more times for pictures once we reached the basin above Glacier Lake. The Alpine Lakes Wilderness is such a unique place with rock outcroppings sticking up through the heather and grasses. Definitely a special place.
Once at Glacier Lake, we barely broke stride as we rounded the lake and headed up the rock field. We all wanted to camp at Chikamin Lake. We still had some ground to cover.
After missing the trail junction to Chikamin Lake, we found ourselves taking a much harder and longer approach through a high saddle above Chikamin Lake. We arrived Chikamin Lake around 7pm. The icy wind stopped us from taking a swim before dinner.
Around 4am, the wind stopped. We woke to beautiful blue skies. The two guys camping near by said the wind had blown the entire 4 days they were camped there.
Chikamin Peak was beautiful in the morning light.
Too bad we would not be climbing Chikamin Peak on this trip. Our goal was Lemah Three aka Middle Lemah. We had a big day ahead of us.
Our route description had us climbing up Lemah One aka Lemah’s Thumb to a high saddle and then dropping down a steep snow gully and wrapping around the based of Lemah Two and Three before climbing back up.
All was going great as we climbed the ridge on Lemah’s Thumb. The views just keep getting better.
Jim really wanted to climb Lemah’s Thumb while we were here so we bypassed the low spot in the ridge and headed to the summit. We decided to rope for the Class 3 summit block. It looked more like a Class 5 bouldering move with some consequences if you fell. It was actually a fun lead with a rope.
We had plenty of room on the summit for the three of us take a break and enjoy the view of Mt Rainier over the top of Chikamin Peak.
Lisa and I downclimbed the summit block on a tight belay. I actually preferred climbing up and needed Jim to lower me through the worse section. Jim downclimbed leaving a sling over a horn that he later was able to flick off with the rope. He is so handy.
The three of us then hiked down the ridge looking for the steep snow gully needed to access the basin below Lemah Two and Three. When Jim finally found it, there was no snow in it. Instead there was a rock and dirt cliffy thing. Neither Lisa nor I even looked at it. Jim said we would need a much, much longer rope. Maybe 10 times longer than the one we had. No, Lemah Three aka Middle Lemah for this trip. What to do with our afternoon?
We talked about returning to the lake and going for a swim. We did have some margaritas with us but not enough to get us through more than an hour. Instead we decided to traverse over and try and climb Chikamin Peak. The normal route is on the other side of the mountain but we are not known for doing things the easy way.
We quickly descended to the end of Chikamin Lake and headed up on to the shoulder of Chikamin Peak. The Lemah Mountain cluster looked very intimidating from here.
We did find a gully between the first and second horn on the Chikamin ridge which allowed us access to the other side. The gully turned out to be pretty horrible and none of us wanted to return that way. Our way back to camp was a problem for later. For now, we were headed to the summit.
Jim and I had climbed Chikamin Peak 8 years ago with Luke and Derek. We spent most of the afternoon trying to figure out where we had gone with them. Of course, we didn’t take the standard route back then either.
After traversing some hairy scree slopes and climbing a chimney, we arrived the summit. Shortly after our arrival, a mountain goat appeared from the ridge as if to say “this is where you went 8 years ago”.
The goat had obviously seen a lot of humans. It also had a tracker around its neck and ear tag. It must be a transplant from Olympic National Park. She sure was healthy looking. Jim named her “Betty”.
Betty hung out with us on the summit. She seemed to enjoy the views as much as we did. None of these photos are zoomed. She was that close to us.
Chikamin Peak has shear cliffs on two sides. Betty made me so nervous when she would walk right up to the edge and look over.
Betty watched us downclimb from the summit. We then assessed our options for our return to camp. Jim thought he saw an easy way back up the ridge and over to the Chikamin Lake side. We headed out across the scree slopes. Before long Betty was following us. She quickly passed by Lisa and I. She wanted to hike with Jim.
When Jim started hiking again, Betty was right with him.
Most people hike with a dog. Turns out Jim prefers to hike with a goat.
Eventually, Betty found a nice bunch of fresh flowers to dine on. We fully expected to find her in camp later that night.
We arrived camp too late to swim. The sun had already gone behind Chikamin Peak. The air had turned very cold but we still enjoyed our mountain margaritas.
We woke to a very cold, thick fog layer whipping through camp. I ate breakfast in the tent while Lisa and Jim tried to tuck themselves out of the icy wind. Our weather report before we left showed nothing but heat. I was not prepared for these temps.
Once hiking, I started to warm up and enjoy the views.
We only needed to drop a couple hundred feet to be completely out of the clouds. Seemed like every 20 minutes we were stopping to take off another layer.
By the time we came to the boulder field next to Glacier Lake, we were all in short sleeves.
The hike back to the car was pretty quite. I kept thinking about Betty and hoping there wasn’t a goat hunting season in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. I was glad to run into a hunter out scouting for the up coming high hunt. He assured me that there were very few goat tags issued in Washington State and all the hunters would be going where the majority of the goats lived. Betty was safe. I hope she finds a herd soon. She needs a buddy.
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