Eightmile Lake
Despite a late start, we ventured further afield this week to the sunny, hot side of the Cascades. Leavenworth, WA is always a strange adventure---it is a little "Bavarian" town high in the eastern Cascades--cheesy, but fun and quite pretty (and lots of beer gardens for apres hike). The town is very close to some of the best and most challenging hiking in Washington--in particular, an area known as "the enchantments"--on our list, but not really achievable just yet. We tried to do the Eightmile Lake trail last summer, but discovered upon our arrival that NO DOGS are allowed in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. Rather than leave Maisy tethered to the back of the car for the day (though Justin really wanted to), we drove a little further up the road to one of the nearby trails that does allow pooches. In fact, this is how we landed on the wretched 4th of July Creek trail that is described in the 2010 hiking recap post. The reason they allow dogs is because NO ONE hikes this insane trail, so no one cares if you happen to bring your dog.
Anyway--back to the hike at hand. We ditched poor Maisy in chilly, cloudy Seattle and took off for the east. There is no easy way to get there, so it was quite a journey before we even got on the trail.
Some data:
Distance: 6.6 miles
EF rating: on the hard end of easy
JJ rating: easy
Jellybeans: 10 each, plus a couple of twizzlers
Highlights: lakes, crazy rivers/creeks running superfast with snowpack melt, chipmunks, wildflowers
Lowlights: forest decimated by wildfire in the 1990's--no trees, hot, dusty
The big climb started right away. We followed Icicle Creek most of the way.
Still in long sleeves...not for long
Elijah hiking up through the wildflowers
Finian sneaking up from the rear
Eightmile Pond---almost to the lake!
Triumphant!
The reward
Carpet of wildflowers
headed back down
Wildflower Meadow
The boys thought this was cool....I did not.
more meadows
forest fire to the left, thriving forest to the right
snowy peaks
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