John Guilford's Hikes
Heather Lake on 1991-09-21
Date: 1991-09-21
People: (including myself): Hoang Nhu, Rich Wilson, Chris
Start: 1:00
Heather Lake: 2:15
End Lunch: 3:00
Leave Lake: 4:15
Down: 5:10
Originally, I had hopes to use this hike to do a loop from Heather Lake up
to the ridge and around to Pilchuck summit and down. Due to the other
people in the group, I lowered my sights to a loop from Heather Lake to
Lake 22 and down. The hike up was rather uneventful. Hoang, it turns out,
isn't a very experienced hiker and took some pop and canned juices for
drink. He found out that one problem with that is that you have to drink
the whole can at once. The weather was nice, warm but not hot, with sun
through the trees. There weren't any bugs.
There were a fair number of people at the lake (which wasn't a surprise).
We followed the trails around to the left side of the lake where we found a
couple logs to eat lunch on. For some reason, Hoang wasn't hungry and gave
his sandwich to Chris and the rest of us. During lunch, we surveyed the
hillside leading to the saddle between Heather Lake and Lake 22. It looked
pretty brushy. We decided to try the side nearer the cliffs. We worked
our way around the left side of the lake (about 40% of the way around)
until the brush got a little lower, and then waded through. The three of
us were okay, but Hoang had shorts on and had a worse time through the
brush (which got up to chest high). We then ascended and old scree slope
that was beginning to get covered with dirt and plants. The ground was
still uneven due to the rocks below, but you couldn't always see the holes
due to the plants. A short way up we hit the real brush. It was steep,
uneven, and slick due to the plants. We beat our ways up a bit, but it
became clear that it wasn't going to get any easier, and it would take
forever at the rate we were going; also both Chris and Hoang were having a
harder time (particularly Hoang with his exposed legs). We admitted defeat
and retreated back down to the lake. The hike back down was uneventful.
The correct time to do the hike would be in the spring when the brush was
under snow. I had hoped to check out the difficulty of getting up to the
ridge from the saddle, but didn't get close enough. It looks like it would
not be trivial in any event. It might be possible to leave the trail
before the lake and head up through trees and avoid some of the brush, but
we didn't check this out.
I had carried up my rope in case I did try to ascend the ridge and got
stuck, but never had any reason to use it.
Please send comments or corrections to
john_guilford@keysight.com
Last updated on: Mon Jun 8 16:50:16 PDT 2015
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