We started at 8am in the Alpental parking lot (ski area) and headed up the trail to Snow Lake. Unlike our last trip up there, the lake was completely thawed out with no snow in sight. After a brief photo op we then went around Snow and up to Gem Lake. These high alpine lakes are gorgeous- the clearest water you've ever seen in a shade that resembles blue Windex. We had a quick snack at Gem then strategized our next destination, Chair Lake. Unforunately for us there is no trail to the pass and the route looked decidely sketchy with steep boulder fields . In true adventure racing spirit we pressed on, first completely bushwhacking through the forest then crossing the first of many scree and snow areas. The first part was fine, then we scrambled up a steep meadow-like area and finally reached Chair Lake, which was high enough in elevation to still have big patches of snow on it. We all dared Eric to jump in, but after sticking his hand in the water he decided against it. Bummer. We then crossed more scree and snow, then climbed up another extremely steep meadow to reach the saddle. Yippee- the hard part is over, right? Wrong! There was another massive boulder field to cross before reaching the trail back down to the car. That section was uneventful, although I had a slight delay after a rock hit my ankle bone :( So when we reached lake Matakwa (sp?) Eric was so hot that he took off his shirt and jumped in the water! It must've been super cold-as soon as he hit the water he was already on his way back to the shore! The remainder of the hike was hot and rocky and seemed like an eternity. Pretty much all we talked about is how badly we wanted a Slurpee. We stopped at Denny Creek (a rocky area with lots of pools to sit in) to wash our faces and then finished the trail with no major incidents (except for Eric hurting his knee). We were so happy to see the car!
Here are couple pics, I'll post more tomorrow on the photo site:
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