Hyas Lake, Tuck Lake, Robin Lakes

This hike has been on our short list for a long time & we finally went in a vain search for yellow Larches. To kill the suspense - there weren't any.

Neither were there horrible crowds these places are notorious for. We shared Tuck Lake (the lower lake, right?) with four other hikers, two of whom were "lost" at any given moment, while the other two searched for them, becoming "lost" while the original "lost" folks recycled back into camp, to split up, search for the other lost hikers, regroup, change places, become lost, found, or stand on a rock blowing a whistle for hours trying to assemble everyone into a coherent group for the descent back down the mountain.

They were entertaining, but a bit distracting. Fortunately, after a few hours of their Benny Hillish antics, all wound up (by sheer coincidence) in the same place. I imagine all four of them running in circles, converging, banging chests together, falling down, jumping up & hugging and clapping backs while kazoo music plays in the background. They exited stage left, and I assume promptly became lost once more.

The weather was excellent, bugs present but not annoying ( weird that they were there at all considering the ice and frost, but such is the persistence of life). There was some really cool ice in the shadows of the rocks, like long weird toothbrush strands - never seen anything like it before.

Like I said, no yellow Larches. Boo hoo.

I had some kind of bowel disturbance and was thankful for the toilet at Tuck Lake. Someone had relocated it & the aforementioned "pile sticking out the hole" was (fortunately for me) gone.

The place is beautiful, the hike in hard blah blah blah. After years of hearing how crowded it is, the solitude was kind of disappointing. Except for the four lost hikers - they were great! There is also a lost sleeping bag by the shore of Tuck Lake that I initially feared might be a dead member of The Lost Four. Thankfully, it is/was a bag that seems to have loosed itself from someones pack and vaulted down the mountain, coming to rest twenty feet or so from shore. I would have hiked in to remove it, but I had intestinal issues and was more interested in just making it home with clean underwear by this point, so I left it lay.

I'm glad we finally made it to these lakes and can cross them off the list, as it were. The drive in is interminable - an hour and a half after Cle Ellum, all back roads. Nice place and all, especially with a lack of crowds & bugs.