[DIYSteve]

The route of which jetlag speaks sounds like the route Randy and I descended on a ski tour in July 2012, although perhaps we swung farther N. Randy had done it late season, reporting that much of it was treaded (miner? hunter?). Lowell's pic of the cliffs accurately conveys a feeling of skiing on PSL next to those big cliffs. Here is a different perspective via a longer lens:

There go the waxless bases

[Jetlag]

BigSteve, yes, there are sections of good tread on what looks like it is going to be a cliffy brush section on the rim of the Daniel glacier basin. Also some sections of tread around a nice camp on the Eastern rim just below that area with a good water source. Not many good sections of tread on this route just above the PCT, but the terrain is easy. Neat picture of the 2012 ski tour across the lake. We ran into a Tacoma Mountaineers group led by Dayhike Mike just a couple weeks after that and, boy, the crossing of Pea Soup sure looked dicey!

[marydave]

That's a great illustration of glacial retreat in our neck of the woods. Thanks, for posting that here, Lowell; I've enjoyed reading your articles on alpenglow.org for years. That area is definitely on my list of future places to visit, also inspired by earlier trip reports to Jade Lake and Dip Top Gap (I've been to Deception Pass a couple of times, but always en route elsewhere).

[GaliWalker]

[Ski]

fascinating. I have to wonder if I am the only one who noticed the notes on the 1941 photos were written with a fountain pen using the standard "office blue" ink? the ballpoint pen didn't come to be commonly used until over a decade later.

[Jetlag]

GailWalker, it was great to go back and see your wonderful TR and photos of Pea Soup Lake, completed before I knew about this site. Congratulations on attaining your objective. As for the tree section of the route being brushy, the lower forest from Hyas Lake up to the PCT is devoid of any real brush. You must be referring to the short bit of forest above the PCT just to the right of Daniel Ford. If you start climbing further along the PCT toward Deception Pass, this can be avoided. There IS one short section of thick brush below the lower cliff bands on the left side of the creek above the PCT, which I now remember (we found a camera there) and I think this can be also be avoided by staying high up right of the creek. Other than that - great route!

[Lowell_Skoog]

For anyone interested in the WW2-era civil defense program mentioned in this TR, you can find more information about it in my notes here: http://alpenglow.org/ski-history/notes/ms/ocd-ski-defense.html

[MtnGoat]

Nice thread and comparison photos. I love the old, analog days notes with annotations written on photos. Flowersniffer and I did a route from Deception pass over Lynch peak and down into the basin in about 1991, and the ice was barely touching the lake at that time. All I had for reference then was of course much older pics, and we were bummed to find we'd missed the iceberg days (by at least a decade?)

[Jetlag]

Thanks for giving the link to your collection, Lowell. Watson was certainly active in 1941-42, hitting the highlights of the Alpine Lakes with a vengeance! "Since the Cascade Range was considered too large to scout in its entirety" - Classic! The entire North Cascades north of Stevens Pass had to be disregarded! Also, good to read about Ome Daiber's rescue activity. I missed several chances to hear him speak. My father found his experiences in the Colorado Rockies to be quite useful when descending at night from a high mountain perch into Innsbruck.

[Larry]

I am always blown away (and sad) that so MUCH ice has melted in the past decade or so. These images bring home the reality. When I was a pre-teen, the glaciers in the Olympic Mountains were also much larger than now. Sometime, if I can find them, I'll post before and after pics. One of the neatest glaciers was on the east side of Diamond Mountain, with a lot of calving going on (about 1956) and the waves would surf across the lake and make a heck of a splash on the shore. I have a fragment in my mind of sleeping at the lake and hearing these 'booming' sounds during the night. There was also a pretty active glacier flowing down from Mount Claywood.

[reststep]

Larry, did you go up Hidden Creek?

[peltoms]

Bill Prater took a number of pictures of the glacier in the interval as Pea Soup began to expand.