Both trails shared the same trail head, and even the first 2.5 miles of the trail. We knew we had found a great hike when the large parking lot was already filled at 7:30 a.m. We headed up the tree-shaded trail with the rest of the weekend crowd.
We knew that the town of Leavenworth would be crowded on this beautiful Saturday, so we planned to escape to the mountains for an early morning hike. Some of that crowd was enjoying the mountain trails as well. But there are enough miles that we were scattered over the trail without being crowded.
After 2.5 miles of hiking uphill, we came to the split in the trail that separates the two trails. We decided to veer to the left towards Colchuck Lake. Here the trail turned even more steeply up-hill. For the next 1.67 miles we were on a stair-master made up of rocks and tree roots going up the mountain.
We noticed some movement in the trees beside us, and realized that we had hiked up to mountain goat territory.
When the goat moved away from the trail, Mark followed him through the trees for some great pictures. This guy is transitioning from his winter coat into his summer wear.
He must be used to sharing the trail with hikers. When he laid down, we took one more picture and then continued on our way up the mountain.
It was a tough hike, but the pay-off was grand as we got our first glimpse of Colchuck Lake. Mark is blending into the scenery, but he is standing out on the edge of a boulder jutting into the water.
After hiking three hours, the sun was right overhead. So our pictures of the surrounding snow-covered mountain faces don't have the right lighting. But they're still pretty darn pretty. We love the color of a mountain lake that is filled with snow melt.
It's not only a brilliant blue-green, but it is also crystal clear. You can clearly see the under-water boulders in the foreground of the picture below.
We noticed that we seemed to be the oldest people at the lake. We were decades older than most of the other hikers. Most of them knew to bring swim suits for diving into the lake. From the yells uttered when they hit the water, we knew that the water was a little nippy. One swimmer described it as "not warm."
Mark was out on a boulder checking the water temperature, and he had to agree that it was snow-cold.
We ate our picnic lunch and enjoyed some good views on the trail-side of the lake.
But we wondered how far we could hike around to the other side of the lake. There was no trail, but we bush-whacked our way to the far side. We had to make a water crossing over a narrow log that was wedged above the lake. There was extra incentive not to fall off the log when Mark spotted this snake swimming by.
On this tough hike through the brambles and across the creek, we started tallying up our trail injuries and awarding points for new bumps and bruises. But we also got to witness new perspectives to the lake and the snowy mountains around it.
Denisa thinks it was still worth it for the views from the other side of the lake.
We had spied this large flat boulder from the other side of the lake, and that was our destination. Then we found that the only way to the top was climbing up two logs resting on the edge.
It was an interesting climb using the knobs left over from the missing branches.
But it made for a good view from the top. And no one else was crazy enough to get there, so we had the entire area to ourselves.
Here we could be entertained by the antics of the much-younger hikers that were "enjoying" time in the water straight off the snow melt. It's an interesting picture that has both swimmers and snow in the same frame.
After we climbed down off our boulder, we took off our hiking boots for an icy foot soaking too. We've hiked well over five miles, and that certainly was a refreshing water bath.
We saw that one of the local mountain goats was coming down for water, and perhaps hoping for handouts from the other hikers.
We were tired by the time we bush-whacked back across the lake. Denisa thought she was ahead on the trail injury tally, but Mark got extra points from spearing his head on an overhead branch. It was a tiring and rugged hike in a beautiful setting. One more look across beautiful Lake Colchuck before we left it behind.
We got back to the trail, now heading straight downhill. We noticed that the trees that are standing look healthy and green. But we also notice that the forest floor is covered by downed trees that look like toothpicks.
It was on this section that we met a couple rangers, and asked about the comparison of this trail and the one to Lake Stuart. That had been our second choice, and we were still wondering if we had made the right choice. They explained that the other trail was much flatter and easier, with great meadow views. They added that it would "only" take an extra 4.5 mile hike to do both trails today. Hmmmm
We simmered that idea in our mind as we headed down the steep trail. It was steep enough that we had to be careful with each step, and we weren't making very good time. When we finally made it to the intersection, we had already hiked 8.2 miles today and we were still almost 3 miles from our car. We would have to be crazy to add a hike to the other mountain lake, right?
That's when a couple of middle-aged hikers urged us to take the Stuart Lake trail too. Call us crazy, but for some reason we turned our hiking boots uphill to our second lake of the day. The rangers' descriptions were actually accurate. Even though it was longer, there was little elevation gain. They were also right about the great meadow views of Mount Stuart along the way.
After the up-hill trail earlier, it was nice to be in a broad meadow filled with wildflowers in the shadow of some of the tallest mountains in Central Washington.
It was already 3:30 by the time we got our first views of Stuart Lake with the mountain of the same name in the background.
Not as turquoise-blue as Lake Colchuck, it was still a lovely mountain lake. We also noticed an older and smaller crowd here. So it was a quieter place for a little rest time. Mark found an interesting rock at the water's edge for an unusual nap position.
By the time we soaked our tired feet in the cold water of Lake Stuart and had a revitalizing snack, we had spent an hour here. We hoped we had rested enough to make the final 5+ miles back to our car.
The good news is that the entire hike back was basically downhill. Our legs were feeling the effects of the long trail today as we made that long push back to the car. We tried not to get distracted from our goal, but we had to stop for cute little wildlife creatures on the the trail. This guy was chewing on a pine cone, eating across it like it was corn on the cob.
We were glad we made that detour to Stuart Lake, but we were certainly feeling the effects as we hiked 16 miles before the day was over. We had to walk a little further past the trail head to get to our car. Even at 7:30 a.m., the parking lot had been full, so we had to park beside the narrow dirt road.
Now 11 hours after we got here, we are leaving at 6:30 p.m. We see that the parking lot is still full, and there are cars parked 3/4 of a mile down the road. We had read that these were two of the prettiest hikes in the state of Washington, and as we remember some of our favorite views of the day, we would have to agree. We have definitely wandered into another of God's wonders today!
Beautiful. Thanks for sharing.
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