First off, I hadn't hiked this trail (1106) in over 20 years, and that was coming from Cramer to Dog Lake at the end of 2 1/2-day hike. I had thought distance of the hike was only about 2 miles and change, but it turned out to be nearly 5 miles one way. Needless to say, we were bushed by the time we made it back to Dog Lake today.
   The key word for the hike today was MOSQUITOS!!! Those little bugs tore us up and seemed to thrive on DEET, though it wasn't 100%.
   On the trail, we encountered a lot of mud, snow and overgrowth, sometimes making it difficult to discern where the trail was. We actually found ourselves off of it a couple of times. We only saw about 10 people total during the hike, including a summer group of 4 college kids from Eastern WA who were doing trail maintenance.
   We encountered no wildlife, other than people with unleashed dogs, although we did see deer droppings in many places.
   The footbridge was pretty much gone, so we crossed the river on fallen trees.
   I hope the next time we do this hike, we can enjoy more the beauty surrounding us, without the worry of bugs. Today, we did all we could to avoid the mosquitos and were not able to stop for more than a minute or so without being eaten alive.
   You can access the Trailhead at the Dog Lake campground on HWY 12, about 2 miles East of the White Pass Ski Area.

Sounds of elk bugles, a sure sign of autumn, highlighted this 3-day backpack in the William O. Douglas Wilderness. An elk bugle is an eerie sound when you are tucked in your tent at night or hiking down a wilderness trail by day. We heard elk both nights while camped at Long John Lake and sporadically during our 10.7-mile loop hike on the second day.

We hiked in from U.S. Highway 12 on the Cramer Lake Trail, then via the Shellrock Lake Trail to Long John Lake. The Green Trails map and Wenatchee NF trails list show a "system trail" from the Shellrock Lake Trail to Long John Lake. We overshot our destination, however, because the signs are missing for the Dumbbell Lake Connector Trail and the Long John Lake Trail. We backtracked and found Long John Lake, where there is a campsite on the west shore.

Our all-day loop hike took us to the former lookout site on the 6,340-foot summit of Tumac Mountain, where we could see Mount Adams looming above the Goat Rocks to the south, the bare slopes of the White Pass Ski Area, Mount Rainier to the west, and Twin Sisters Lakes lying at the foot of Miners Ridge to the north. We descended to Twin Sisters Lakes for lunch and continued around the loop. It was a true wilderness experience: we did not encounter a single person on the entire hike. During the 3 days, we encountered less than 10 people, and they were mostly anglers. In all, we hiked almost 22 miles and gained about 2,500 feet, passing numerous nameless lakes and ponds on the Tumac Plateau.

The trails are in bad shape, probably a combination of the heavy snowpack and late melt out keeping the tread wet later than normal, limited maintenance and heavy stock use. Many mudholes. In some places, it was drier to walk off the turnpike than on it because of the huge puddles. We did many "work arounds" through the brush to avoid walking in the worst mud pits. The bridge that used to span North Fork Clear Creek on the Cramer Lake Trail washed out in some past flood, so you need to be prepared to wade or walk a log. Some ruts came nearly to my waist. The sorriest trails were the Cowlitz Trail going over Tumac Mountain and the Twin Sisters Trail between the lakes and the PCT. The trail in the best shape -- no surprise -- was the PCT. WTA could find enough work here for an entire summer of Volunteer Vacations.

The huckleberry crop was pretty sparse, but there were lots of boletas mushrooms. The huckleberry leaves are just beginning to turn red.

Started out around noon at Dog Lake Campground and went up the 1106 (Cramer Lake Trail). The weather was awesome, very sunny but not too hot. We had lots of smoke rolling up in that area and we wondered if there was a forest fire nearby; when we reached the end of the hike we asked a forest ranger and he said it was from Southern Oregon forest fires (the smoke was with us the whole trip). Anyways, we hiked from dog lake to Long John Lake on the first day. The bridge is still out on the trail but there's a large log about 100 yards up the creek that you can cross on. That section was 5.23 miles on my GPS, the map showed it was about 6.7 but by my calculations it was 5.23. We camped near Long John Lake the first night and I caught two small cutthroat trout out of the lake. Temperatures got down to around 40 degrees so it wasn't too cold. Got up early that morning and headed north on 1142 (Shellrock Lake Trail) then briefly headed west on what my "green trails map" said was trail 44. Then less than a quarter mile after getting on trail 44 we went north on the PCT (Trail 2000). Lots of wild blue huckleberries along the trail all the way along the PCT where we went, especially on the climb out of fish lake. We went north the second night on the PCT all the way till the cut off to American Lake. It was a 15.9 Mile stretch according to my GPS but my legs thought it was 25 miles! unless you're in really good shape i wouldn't recommend going all 16 miles in one day, especially with the 1500 - 2000 ft. elevation gain coming out of Fish Lake. Water was not a problem on the trip but i would recommend filling up at the stream thats about halfway up the climb out of fish lake. We didn't come accross water again on the trail till we camped near American Lake. On the third day we hiked out on the PCT up to Dewey Lake then to the bridge at Chinook pass staying on the PCT the whole way. That section of the trail was pretty easy till the climb out of Dewey lake. The third day total was roughly 7.5 miles. Mosquitos were not bad on the hike; they were around but not nearly as thick as they are in July. the total trip was just over 28 miles on my GPS and there were some spectacular views!