Take the detours. Go see whatever there might be to see.
Prepare to be delighted. Enjoy whatever you discover. What you get might be even better than what you expected.
1st Careless Wish: Ever since I first say Ice Lakes on a trip in 1994, I’ve wished to see the lakes with fresh snow and golden larches. Result: In every one of four subsequent trips during larch season, I’ve been obstructed by deep snow or fresh storms. But it’s been an entertaining quest anyway.
Saturday
Leroy Basin
Delightful Discovery: The trees had much more color remaining than I had expected.
Delightful Discovery: There was just enough new snow to frost the rocks above and coat the basins below.
Delightful Discovery: Walking through the larches was wonderful, as always. The light reflected off the colored needles made the very air itself feel rich and comforting.
Delightful Discovery: Even when fallen from the trees, the larch needles scatter like artwork amid the snow, heather, and blueberries.
Ice Pass
Delightful Discovery: Finally, instead of steely cold grey and black, Upper Ice Lake was bright blue in the sunshine.
Mt. Maude
We descended a couple hundred feet, switched to lightweight summit packs, and most of the group ascended Maude.
Not So Delightful Discovery: Clouds were rapidly building up from the west.
1st Fruitful Detour: Descending Maude, I angled over to the steeper east edge of the slope, which gave me a view of both of the lakes. The high contrast with the snow made the lakes look like black voids, but I enjoyed seeing their shapes in context with the peaks beyond.
Upper Ice Lake
We descended back to our packs and made a camp at Upper Ice Lake.
Delightful Discovery: Back at the packs, Tom & Justus greeted us as they passed by on their fast day trip.
Evening Recon
2nd Fruitful Detour: After dinner I went roaming out along the shore of Upper Ice Lake, dropped down to the bench above Lower Ice Lake, and followed the bench back past Middle Ice Pond to camp.
Several Discovered Delights:
* The outlet stream tumbled down its steep cleft in series of short falls and rapids, including a perfect secluded waterfall-fed pool.
* The overcast evening light made the larches glow with soft light like warm blazes in the cool gray landscape.
* The still surface of the middle pond reflected all the peaks in the last bit of fading life as I walked by.
Sunday
2nd Careless Wish: I wanted it to not be frigidly cold overnight. Result: Thick clouds moved in and covered the summits, providing a warming blanket of air that raised the temperature overnight.
Traverse to Lower Ice Lake via Middle Ice Pond
Several Discovered Delights:
* Despite the ominous wind and clouds, almost everyone was willing to try for North Spectacle Butte anyway.
* Ptarmigans! My favorite mountain bird! Even better, these ptarmigans were midway in transition from brown to white, their white feather with bits of brown and black making a perfect match for the brown and black rocks amid the white snow.
* Sneaking past one side of the clouds, bright sun lit up the crest line of Ice Ridge in the storm-freshened clear air.
* Scores of scattered boulders decorated the near end of Middle Ice Pond.
* Calmer water at the far end of Middle Ice Pond made pretty reflections of even small details.
* Some surprisingly large larch trees stood on the heights above Lower Ice Lake.
* Sizable stands of larches dropped steeply down into the Entiat Valley.
* Fallen larch needles filled the tracks of previous hikers.
North Spectacle Butte Ascent
Easy slopes and ridges led all the way to the top of North Spectacle.
Un-Delightful Discovery: The wind was roaring across the ridges, especially in the Maude-Spectacle Col. Going up the final slope, I was afraid to even get out more clothes, for fear that anything I unfastened would be whipped away by the wind. Fortunately, the summit itself was less windy.
Delightful Discovery: There were small larches all the way up on top.
North Spectacle Butte Descent
Delightful Discovery: The clouds lifted. The sun came out.
Lower Ice Lake
Delightful Discovery: Lower Ice Lake has an especially enticing peninsula and island.
3rd Fruitful Detour: On returning to Lower Ice Lake, I detoured around the shore the peninsula for a swim. Besides the fun swim, this detour also brought me to the golden shoreline.
3rd Careless Wish: I wanted to swim to the island in Lower Ice Lake. However, I forgot to wish for the cold wind to stop. It was a great swim anyway.
Delightful Discoveries while Swimming:
* The water was surprisingly comfortable, enough that I swam back and forth a bit extra. (However, the waves that occasionally slapped me in the face were not so delightful.)
* The island was fun to visit. I was originally going to just swim, but the island was too tempting, even if it meant getting out in the cold air. Much of the ground turned out to be soft pumice, perfect for running around in bare feet.
* The swim felt great afterward – a brief chill while drying off, but then I felt thoroughly refreshed and invigorated.
Best Delightful Discovery of the Trip: Two items individually seemed quite un-delightful – constant winds by the lake, and larches that had already lost most of their needles. But the two together produced something extra special – a golden shoreline of floating larch needles outlining the whole downwind curve of the lake.
On the hike back along the Lower-Middle lake bench, many of the earlier delights looked even better in the bright sun.
Upper Ice Lake
Delightful Discovery: The bright day make Upper Ice Lake shine in rippling shades of color, everything from deep navy to bright teal.
Ice Pass
The shifting, wind-ruffled waters of the lake continued to display stunning varieties of blue as we ascended.
Leroy Basin Exit
Delightful Discovery: I thought it would be less interesting going back down Leroy Basin, but the sunlight shining from the opposite side lit up new aspects of all the trees and slopes.
Back at the Car
A mouse shredded some papers in my trunk again, and chewed holes in one of my favorite shirts.
Along the drive home, my odometer reached 123456.
-------------- "Matt, you are truly full of it. But you take great --- pics, in spite of that." Scrooge
Matt, thanks for the photo of that "delightful" pool just below Upper Ice Lake, near the top of the falls - one of the fondest memories from my only visit to Ice Lakes. Your photos are wonderful!
-------------- 'Gali'Walker => 'Mountain-pass' walker
bcfc53: "...don't you ever forget your camera!"
Photography site: http://galiwalker.zenfolio.com/
What a great collection of pictures everyone! Those larches look magnificent.
Quote:
We tried to settle down again but sometime around 1-2AM things started to get real interesting. The winds started blowing with some gusts hitting our tent so hard that the side would cave in and the fabric hit us in the face.
Yeah, I can relate to that exact experience! I thought my tent was the only one with this feature.
Joined: 25 Jul 2008 Posts: 1570 | TRs | Pics Location: A little under the weather
Sun Oct 19, 2008 11:14 am
Matt wrote:
Who is Mad Monty? While I was hiking alone past Middle Ice Pond in the evening, some guys on the opposite side had built a big campfire (right underneath a large larch, damn them). They yelled across and asked if I was Monty.
Heck if I know who he is other than some hairy, hippy lookin' dude I crossed paths with on the Entiat trail. He said to look his photo albums up on Google and this is what I came up with:
Sorry I was a slug on Saturday - school has really zapped my energy as of late. Nothing like a good nights rest in freezing temps and gale force winds to refresh one's self - Sunday was better energy wise.
Tired or not, I couldn't' pass up that area with fresh snow and golden larches. I'd figured we'd get good views (and photos) but it was better than what I'd envisioned.
Alas, I still have yet to load my photos onto Flickr and then to here. It may never happen, or maybe I can do so after this quarter is done in December. We'll see. But you guys pretty much captured the experience head-on.
Oh, and the questions about Mad Monte must be right in that this is most likely him. I'm jealous of his vintage stove collection! http://www.pbase.com/mad_monte1/image/54963414 Bastard! A collectible I'm holding off on starting myself due to a severe lack of space.
Joined: 17 Dec 2001 Posts: 6283 | TRs | Pics Location: Lyle, WA
Fri Oct 24, 2008 8:14 pm
Wow. Probably the single most memorable set of trip pics I can remember seeing in quite some time. The combination of the weather, the season, the light snow on everything, and stellar photography from all concerned made this a top notch TR. Wow.
-------------- "Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."
- Ayn Rand
Great, great trip reports and fabulous fotos! I was on day hike through Spider Meadows and up to Larch Knob that Sat; did not make Spider Gap because the sun was too low and I wanted to be back to the trailhead because dark. Did anyone save a GPS track of your treks? If yes, is there a site to download the .gpx files?
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Those larches look magnificent.
I'm getting around to my own reply.
