[MangyMarmot]

It was time to do a bigger day trip. I had a couple of peaks in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness on my mind. St. Agnes Ridge and Otter Point. Looking at the map it looked reasonable to do a loop starting from the West Fork Foss Lakes trailhead, tag St. Andrews Ridge, then drop to Otter Lake, climb up to Otter Point, hike out to the Necklace Valley trailhead, and hike the road back to my car. There would be some unknown terrain, but it would probably go. The hike had a rocky start. At the trailhead I realized I forgot to download the maps to the area so I drove out almost to highway 2 where I could get reception, downloaded the maps and drove back to the trailhead. This burned about 45 minutes which I would later need. I followed the trail up to Big Heart Lake. This went smoothly. I saw no other hikers on the trail. There were a number of campers milling around camp but nobody actually hiking. The weather was nice and many peaks were in view. I continued on the trail to the Atrium until I found the unofficial side trail to the outlet of Angeline Lake. This trail is not too hard to find if you are looking for it. It's a bit scrambly getting down to the outlet stream. Crossing the outlet was easy. The trail soon started to fade. I found a couple of cairns on the way us St. Agnes Ridge, but the last part was just open country. Little bit of scrambling near the top. There is a small cairn near the summit which holds the summit register. I got here a bit later than I expected. I took some photos as the view was pretty nice.

Copper Lake and Benkopp Peak

Malachite above Copper Lake

Big Heart Lake, Camp Robber Peak and Tourmaline Peak

Camp Robber Peak

Lake Angeline and Ironcap

Silver Eagle

Otter Point from St. Agnes

I then dropped down to Azurite Lake and then Otter Lake. This was mostly talus up high and steep, brushy forest down low. The South end of Otter Lake has a huge, slabby rock outcrop that goes all the way into the lake. It didn't look too steep so I climbed up a bit until I could get on it. Crossing the slab was not hard, but there was a surprise on the other side. The other side was vertical with broken rocks below. There didn't seem to be a good way to downclimb and going around would take a lot of time. I followed the slab down toward the water. Near the water there was a small ledge with what looked like fairly shallow water below. I took off my boots and took my phone and camera out of my pockets and put them in my pack. I carefully downclimbed toward the water. I got to about a foot above the water before I was out of holds. From there I skid in feet first. The water was almost up to my waist. From there I could wade to the shore. On shore I ate lunch and put my boots back on. By now I was significantly later than expected.

Azurite Lake

Otter Lake and Malachite

Then it was time to start up toward Otter Point. Earlier I had seen that there is a cliff band several hundred feet above Otter Lake. I had also spotted a gully that looked like it would take me through the cliff band. I made for this gully. The gully turned out to be much steeper than it looked from across the valley, but there were trees for holds. Eventually it got pretty vertical. The choices were to either climb the last bit, or climb back down and look for a different way. I was significantly behind schedule so I went for it. Above the cliff band the slope was steep but manageable. There were talus fields and forested areas. The views improved with the elevation. Finally I got reached the crest and looked down at Necklace Valley. Otter Point summit was just a short hike away.

Hinman and La Bohn

Bears Breast

Shroud

Peaks of the Alpine Lakes crest

The various Chiefs

Chimney Rock and Overcoat

View from Otter Point Summit

Silver and Bald Eagles

I had a quick snack on the summit, took some photos and started down toward Tahl Lake and Necklace Valley. This section looks like a fairly continuous slope, but in reality it's a bunch of fairly level sections and cliff bands. Getting down into the valley took longer than expected. Now it was pretty obvious I would not make it back to the car before dark. Once on the trail, I headed down at a quick pace. I briefly stopped to talk to a few campers and take a few photos. Below the last lake is the descent into the valley. This always seems like it's longer than it should be. I got to the bottom of the valley as the sun was nearing the horizon. I hiked toward the trailhead as the light faded.

Tahl Lake

It was pretty dark by the time I approached the Necklace Valley trailhead. I though if I got lucky, someone would be driving to West Fork Foss Lakes and I could hitch a ride instead of having to walk the road. About a minute before reaching the trailhead, I saw two pairs of headlight cruise down the road toward West Fork Foss Lakes. Why couldn't they have driven by two minutes later? I took out my headlamp and set off down the road. No other cars came by. As I approached the West Fork Foss Lakes trailhead, there was one more obstacle. The road fords a creek. This ford is no problem for cars, but not good when you're on foot. It's really wide and deep enough to get your boots wet. I was able to get across most of it on some rocks just upstream of the road, but near the far shore there were no more rocks. I decided to jump, push off quickly with one foot in the water, and hopefully land on dry land. This was not to be. When I tried to push off with one foot, the foot slipped and I fell in the creek like a sack of potatoes. All day I had kept myself and my boots reasonably dry only to end up in the creek a half mile before the trailhead. I walked the soggy half mile, got in my car and headed home. This could be a good loop through a beautiful area if a good way can be found around the large slab at the South end of Otter Lake and also a good way through the cliffband above otter lake. There is little snow on the route except for near Tahl Lake and the Northeast side of Otter point. Bugs were pretty bad in Necklace Valley but not so bad other places.

[Fletcher]

Nice loop Dave!

[Gimpilator]

Sounds like you had a similar situation with lake shores as we did recently. It's an interesting area. Thanks for all the good photos. I can now see the views we missed.

[contour5]

Thanks for posting. That's an awesome day out!

[Waterman]

Very impressive dayhike.

[FiresideChats]

A beautiful and impressive trip, Marmot. Reminded me of last summer, looking down from Atrium into the strikingly clear turquoise of Angeline where the cliff walls plunge down to unknown depths.

[Bluebird]

Geez that's a full day, Dave! I really enjoy that area. No advice on the otter lake issue since I came from the other side on my Alpine Lakes High Route trip. I particularly enjoyed the view from Otter Point. i descended via Foehn and Tahl lakes to the Tanks and descended the Tank Lakes route as part of another trip.