Zeus XxX: Cloudy Pass

Thursday at 7:00am we loaded into a friend’s boat for a short ride to Refrigerator Harbor at Lucerne to begin our day’s journey. Jake, Dawn, and little Ray came with us to drive the boat back while we started our hike. After a 45 minute ride up the road to Holden Village, we borrowed a map, took a picture, and started walking. The weather was just what we had asked for…bright blue skies and sunshine. Up and down we went along the trail for about 2 miles before pulling out some trekking poles to ease the burn in our leg muscles. Hart Lake was the first “notable site” we passed on our left as we winded our way through a rock slide area. The uphill portion of our journey continued through some switchbacks, well more like a lot of switchbacks, as we looked for a nice creek crossing to have lunch. We found one indeed and enjoyed bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches…YUM! On towards Lyman Lake we went. We took some time to soak our feet and walk out into the lake a bit. Cool and refreshing was the water for sure! Cloudy Pass was our next destination and the view was amazing! We walked into a large meadow and saw the little wooden sign for our campsite. The time was around 3:00 and the sun was still high in the sky so we set up camp before walking up to the pass and taking some photos. Of course Steven wanted to walk the ridge line…so up he went to look for some mines….down I went back to camp for an afternoon nap in the tent. Dinner was chicken alfredo with hot chocolate for dessert and we laid down to read a bit in the tent around 9:00. A great day to start a great hiking trip!

On Friday, we woke pretty early to more blue skies filled with white puffy clouds. After breakfast by the fire, reorganization of the packs occurred and the tent was secured in case rain came. The daypack was loaded up with lunch and extra clothes for Steven to carry while I strapped my camera bag on my side. We started on our day hike to Image Lake and Miner’s Ridge. The trail was lined with wildflowers and the views of Glacier Peak were amazing! The pictures turned out well as you can see here and Image Lake provided a nice “image” of Glacier Peak as expected. I must say that the lake was a bit smaller than I thought it would be, but worth the hike for sure. Following the trail on Miner’s Ridge for about a mile beyond the Lake brought us to an old Fire Lookout Tower that is still manned by a volunteer for 2 months each summer, so up the tower we climbed to enjoy the view. Our hike back went by quickly and we found some old cabin sites near mining prospects, so Steven ran up several hillsides to find the mining holes. A few he did discover, but dared not to enter as they were caving in with broken support beams exposed. Mac and cheese was on the menu for Friday night and it was oh-so-good. The rain did keep us awake for several hours that evening, but we were both thankful to be dry inside the tent.

Saturday was “moving day” as we packed up our gear to look for some more mines and begin the descent towards the Agnus Creek trail. The quick hike to the mines ended up taking about 3 hours, so my legs were tired before we really got started that day. After side-hilling for an hour, we did find the actual trail to the mine we were searching for. Out on a bench we walked for another hour or so. Steven did spot the mine and some old equipment before we stopped for lunch. It was a neat site to see and would have been much neater had we found it quicker. For some reason, the 7 miles to Hemlock Camp seemed to take forever, but I must admit that the trail was beautiful and went through several lovely basins. Hemlock was a great campsite…one I was very happy to see…when we arrived around 7:00.

The alarm sounded at 5:30 on Sunday morning to get us moving early for the day in hopes to make it back to the bakery by lunch. We did of course and the early wake up was worthwhile! No one can complain about bakery treats! I added about 15 of the 200 pictures I took on the trip, so please enjoy and I will try to add some captions as well for those of you that are just “lookers” and not “readers” on blog sites.