Colchuck Lake, Central Cascades

A life time ago in June, we ventured up Colchuck Lake Trail for the first time. A tough, but absolutely beautiful hike. I think the hardest part was the constant climbing over rocks, boulders, and tree roots. It was a fabulous hike, very tiring, but so worth the effort. I had read the description of this trail several times, read all kinds of trail reports and the I think the thing that keep me from trying this trail was the description of the boulder field when you cross the 2nd bridge. This part always seemed rather intimidating. The views looking down the valley towards Stuart Lake are gorgeous, not knowing exactly where Colchuck Lake sat, the trail seemed long. When we reached the lake we had the pleasure of two goats coming to check us out. They stayed pretty close the whole time we ate our lunch and guarded our packs. Lots of hikers coming up and down the trail. We relaxed and checked the pass out and the surrounding area out for folks being more adventures than us. The hike down was a little bone jarring on the knees, didn't help that I slipped off a rock and stabbed my arm with a dead tree limb. Nothing like spreading the pain around. By the time we reached the trail head the parking lot was packed all the way down the road. I thought I was going to have to take a little bit of someone else's paint home with me in order to get out of the narrow lined on both sides with cars, road. But we managed to squeeze out with out a new paint job needed. Beautiful hike, I would hike it again, but definitely took us plenty of stops, catch your breath time outs on the way up.

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Cutthroat Trail.......Snowshoeing North Cascades Highway

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Lost In The Right Direction

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