We started this hike on Saturday morning of Labor Day Weekend, hoping to get to Upper Eagle Lake for a night and perhaps go from there if we liked it enough to stay the whole weekend.

But, before I begin, a few words on directions. We used the not-so-amazing ""Best Hikes with Dogs of Western WA"" book to guide us to the trailhead out of Twisp, WA. Word to the wise, take the time to check in at the Methow Ranger Station and get a topo map and some clear directions to the Crater Lakes Trailhead (off of road 4340-300), as it took us a while to find it with the shabby directions in this book. Once you get to the trailhead (I am not even going to try to give directions here, as I am still confounded by it), there is some nice signage and mileage about the loop ahead of you.

This is an all-purpose trail so you wil share it with horses, backpackers, mountain bikers and best of all, motorized vehicles. While it is strange to smell gas in the wilderness, occasionally give thanks that the motorbike association maintains this trail system, which in general, is kept up really well.

The ascent to Upper Eagle (about 7000 ft) was steady and not too rough. The trail is dusty with not alot of water available. It is a beautiful Alpine Lake with ample campsites. We pulled up right next to the horse camp, but no horses this weekend at Upper Eagle, which was nice. Although there is a strict burn ban in the lower Methow, apparently it is not in force above the 6000/7000 feet level we were at. People were burning fires at established pits at each campsite. We did not the first night, because we were unsure of the policy, and we were sorry for it, as we experienced very cold below freezing temps. We almost left after he first night but pushed on over Horsehead pass that morning to explore Boiling Lake and beyond.

You ascend about another 500 feet to get over Horsehead - not too many bad switchbacks. We encountered a large party of motorbikers at the top of the pass, who very kindly shared their topo map with us. As it turns out, this piece of info was key to our decision to push on, as it gave us a much clearer understanding of the mileage and elevation ahead of us. On the way down to Boiling Lake from this pass, we encountered a large horse and mule party who were packing out supplies for a party they had brought into Cooney Lake, much further in. They were very kind as well, but the mules were quite skittish, and flailed a little at the sight of our two dogs - this was the one scary moment where I hopped off the trail and lost my footing a bit.

It is an easy descent to Boiling, which is the least lovely of the lakes on the loop. Although it is in a nice valley surrounded by flowering meadows and marmots (very cute), we didn't linger there long. Luckily, we ran into the Ranger, who highly recommended going on to Cooney Lake. At this point, our plan was sealed, as his enthusiasm helped push us along. Sadly, we later learned that he didn't stop us from heading left at the fork to Cub Lake, which was apparently on to an unmarked sidetrack shortcut trail. This is where I tell you that the signage on this loop is awful, and I mean awful. This is why you need a topo map and need to pay attention to every fork in the road, because they are misleading and just plain lacking in information. We headed over a little pass and into a meadow...

Luckily, we got a little lost in this gorgeous meadow full of marmots, and eventually found our way back to a couple who took the correct trail, and helped direct us back to the way to Cooney Lake. At this point, we watched a large storm cloud move in, and begin to snow lightly on us. As we made our way up to Cooney, again through beautiful flowering meadows looking out over the mountains, it began to hail. The trail quickly turns to intense switchbacks as you rise over the valley, over some hills and up to Angels Staircase. Again, no mention of Cooney Lake on any signs, and at the fork to Angels, someone had scratched it on the sign...thank you! (Just before this point we were passed by two motorbikers with full camo and shotguns. Was it hunting season? - we didn't think so...just an FYI if you aren't used to seeing this kind of thing in the wilderness.) Anyway, we took this left and began the most punishing ascent to the 8000 foot summit. This was tough in the hail and snow, as there was a lot of loose scramble at the top, but the gorgeous view over the valley really did help a lot. At the top of the summit are 360 views of snow topped mountains all around - definitely worth the hike up.

The trail continues along the ridge and then descends quite steeply to Cooney. I would say this is the most beautiful lake, as it is ringed by large granite slabs to camp off of and linger on. This is a big horse destination, and we right away ran into a very friendly party of fishermen who had been packed in by Sawtooth Outfitters, the company that runs a lot of the horse trips in the area. They gave us some good advice about the trail to Martin Lakes ahead. I would had prefered to pull up camp here, as it was so gorgeous and the snow and hail were beginning to abate. But we realized that we probably needed to push on to Martin if we were going to have an easy, shorter hike out the next day. Cooney is at about 7200 feet and Martin is about 6700 - we were hoping also that the extra 500 feet would give us a few extra degrees of warmth after the frozen water bottle experience the night before.

We pushed onto Martin after negotiating some bad signage again - there was actually no sign to Martin Lakes, only one to Foggy Dew, so we took the opposite way intuitively. So far, I think we had hiked about 7 miles from Upper Eagle to Cooney. The next two miles to Martin was fairly simple - switchbacks down and then a small 300 feet back up to the lakes. We were really tired at this point, but felt that we really wanted to get to the lakes in the hopes of having a fire (the Ranger said it was ok!). Turned out that we found a great spot to the right of the lake just as you come in and were the only camp there that night. It was also warmer and a much more enjoyable experience than Upper Eagle. This is a well used lake though, apparently by fishermen, and there was sadly some garbage at our campsite. We saw a large buck around dinner time that was scared away by our pups.

The next day we hiked the roughly 7 miles down to the trailhead, all steady and dry descent. We saw three horse and mule parties from Sawtooth heading to Cooney to get the guys we met, each stopping to chat along the way. All in all, we met a lot of nice people on the trail that were very helpful and informative about what to expect. On the way out you pass over several lovely streams to hydrate as well.

I think that all together we hiked about 23 miles on the whole loop. It was challenging due to the weather, and constant changing of clothes to accomodate this, but all in all, was a really great adventure. It was also quite dog friendly, but we recommend keeping them on leash with the number of horses and bikes you will encounter!

Scenic and enjoyable, if dusty, 3 day walk as done by a 60 year old father & 21 year old son in decent shape but not frequent hikers. Starting about noon Wednesday, we walked from the Crater Creek trail parking area up to Eagle Lake, steady ascent for 6 or 7 miles. Trail is dusty, and there is no water for most of the way, so if you do this be sure to hydrate early and bring plenty of containers. (We were a little short the first day until we got to a stream after about 5 miles.) A sign says trails are maintained by local motorcycle club so they're wide and flat but we saw no bikers today. Trail signs are not optimal and can cause occasional hikers (like us) to become confused -- we wound up backtracking a mile or more to check our bearings at one point, making the hike a little more demanding. Upper Eagle Lake (about 7100 ft) is stunning, ringed by rocky slopes. It was a little buggy but far less than what I had expected. The slopes and lake caught the changing light as the sun disappeared behind the ridge.

Next morning we went over Horsehead Pass catching the great view of Boiling Lake, then back down to the lake. Again unmarked trails and our unfamiliarity with the country led us to take a mile or two diversion from our planned route. (A few more signs would be so helpful to us amateurs on these trails.) We did encounter one motorcyclist. Early afternoon on the Summit trail lovely fields of Lupin nearly everywhere perfuming the dusty path. There were several streams to replenish water supplies -- I'm a big fan of keeping well hydrated especially where much of the hike is around 7000'. Mid afternoon we came to Angel's Staircase, aptly named, fabulous views all along the steep ascent to about 8000', the trail demanding but well maintained over the rocks. From the top we could see Mt. Rainier just peeking over the North Cascades. A short walk to the pass over lovely Cooney Lake, another fabulous viewpoint, and then we did the very abrupt descent down to the lake where we spent the night. A few bugs about sundown but again fewer than I expected. Cooney Lake seems to have something of a reputation as a horse camp but we shared the area with only one other backpacking group, no horses at all. Our second wrong turn added several miles to this hike which wound up being over 10 miles, over several passes. I was quite done in by the end of the day and pretty much just dropped at the campsite. Luckily my son is a hardy guy and took care of dinner.

Final day, hike out, passing near Martin Lake and back down. Fairly long, gently descent, less lovely than the previous day's hike through flowered meadows. Trail is again very dusty. We met a tour guide leading several horses to Martin Lake to bring a group of pack-in campers out. (There were also quite a few pack-in campers at Boiling Lake as we passed by on Tuesday). If I had it to do over again I'd plan to come out via the Foggy Dew trail (reputedly prettier), but we would have had to solve the car logistics in advance because it wouldn't be quite a loop, but the Foggy Dew trailhead doesn't seem very far from the Crater Creek trailhead where we started. Or, if we had a little more time it would have been more pleasant to retrace our trip back over the ridge past Boiling Lake and Eagle Lake. I usually don't like retracing my steps, but the amazing views and beautiful flowery meadows would have been worth it here.

The trip wound up being about 27 miles with our wrong turns, a little over 5000' elevation gain, occasionally steep but mostly steady ascents and descents. No problems except dust and plenty of horse dooky on the trails. Highly recommended for the views and flowers!