Ben and I headed into the wilds of Washington for our second annual Alpine Lakes Scrambleganza™. Tuck & Robin Lakes are north of Cle Elum and are a very popular spot for Seattle-ites, despite the scrambly trail approach. Once you pass Roslyn, the drive is somewhat bumpy dirt, but Ben's sedan made it just fine to the trailhead. The initial bit of trail is pretty flat and takes you past lovely Hyas Lake.
Thence up the steep and rough (yet official) trail to Tuck Lake.
Looking across at Mt. Daniel, where we would be two mornings later.
The trail from Tuck to the Robin Lakes is non-official and marked with cairns.
There are multiple paths and cairn routes going up, so we took the opportunity to monkey around a little.
At one point we ended up on a little ridge in error (the "trail" was below to our left), so we had to do a little downclimbing.
Top o' the hill cairns.
Lower part of the Robin Lakes.
Bigger Robin Lake.
Trico Mountain (L) and Granite Mountain Potholes
Sunset.
Sunrise.
Closeup on Daniel. It's a mountain of multiple peaks - the two on the left are the East and Middle summits, which we would visit the next day.
Pre-breakfast scramble to Trico Peak.
Very nice pothole tarn below Trico - we should have camped here!
Perspective.
Trico summit looking north. (Snowy thing in the distance is Glacier.)
After breakfasting on Trico and taking in the view, we headed down, only to run into a very determined fan of our TRs.
A little too determined to get an autograph, he followed us back to camp...
Look behiiiiind you....
Robin again on the way out.
Back down in the valley, looking south from the PCT.
Epic washout canyon. Photo does not do justice to how enormous this thing was.
Underneath the impressive summit of Cathedral Peak.
Slightly rough spur trail over to Peggy's Pond.
Deep Lake, below.
Peggy's Pond and Cathedral Peak.
Looking up at Daniel from camp. We scrambled the little foreground bump after dinner.
We woke at 4:30 and wasted time making a hot breakfast, then were off under headlamp at 5:30 up the climber trail. It started getting light after six.
Circle Lake
We skipped the snow slopes (they were icy and we didn't have safety gear) and ascended the climber trail/scramble up the ridge on the left.
Looking south towards Mt. Rahn-yay.
Typical scramble terrain. Not too hard or exposed, it turned out. Loads of fun.
Up at the saddle. L-R: West summit (highest), Middle summit, East summit.
View south from the saddle.
Summit view south.
Traversing the "cheese grater" talus towards the Middle summit.
Geode!
Looking at the West summit from the Middle summit.
Continuing from Middle.
Ben on top of West. Slight scramble up, easy, fun.
I followed up a direct scramble (there's a ramp to the right of me), with important summit snacking in mouth.
Ben with Mt. Hinman (snowy thing on the left) behind.
Looking down the Lynch Glacier at Pea Soup Lake.
Crossing talus on the way back.
Long ride down the cheese grater if you slip (but you'd probably stop after a few feet).
Little use trail across the saddle towards the false summit and the ridge descent back down to camp.
Coming back down to Peggy's Pond and Cathedral Peak.
View back at Daniel from camp.
We packed up, hiked out, and drove home.
Around a 5 hr drive from Portland. 31 miles and 8000 ft EG, probably. You cannot pay money for morning light like that.
