Even on a weekday, the part of the trail near the highway was very crowded. Lots of flower blooming. Once we forked off to hike down to Dewey Lake the trail was no longer crowded. We didn't explore a lot around the lake, but saw at least a few campsites. In the evening we were being swarmed by mosquitoes despite treating our clothes and applying bug spray. The morning had much fewer mosquitoes. The lake was good for a dip, just a bit cold so be careful.

Wildflowers at peak bloom and spectacular. Found ripe huckleberries too. Dewey Lakes were not crowded, but Naches Peak Loop part quite busy for a weekday. No bugs on either trail.

Overnight trip to Dewey Lake from Chinook Pass. Arrived to the Sheep Lake Trailhead about 9am on Friday and the parking lot was already nearly full. No toilet paper in both of the bathrooms I checked so make sure to bring your own.

Our group headed off about 9:30am. Trail is unremarkable conditions-wise. Lots of flowers blooming thoughout. And as usual, pretty busy on the loop. We encountered a few thru-hikers on their way to Canada.

We snagged a large site at the southwest end of Dewey for our group of 8 to set up our 6 tents. Then we enjoyed the lake for the rest of the day. A few of us went swimming. My thermometer read 65-66° but some of our group thought it was a bit colder. A couple of us hiked around the lake.

Mosquitoes were pretty bad. Not bad enough that I would call it terrible, but I came home with about 30 bites (I normally treat my clothes with permethrin beforehand but I hadn't gotten around to it yet this summer). We were happy anytime the breeze picked up.

The weather was mild and clear. It was very calm Saturday morning but a tad smokey. My group stayed another night but I hiked out Saturday morning. I left our campsite about 7:45am and by the time I hit the loop it was already getting busy. So get there early if you're going on the weekend!

Specs from Gaia (roundtrip, including circumnavigating Dewey): 8.5mi, 1214ft

Hiked Mesatchee creek to Dewey lake for an overnight, and then back to the Naches trailhead for a total of 12.8 miles.

We parked a car at either end, and while we didn’t have any issues at the Mesatchee trailhead, the parking lot at Naches/PCT/Tipsoo were full and spilling onto the road at about 1:30 pm on a Saturday. To be expected. We managed to get an actual parking spot and went on our way to Mesatchee creek. This was a lovely shaded and flat hike for the first 6.5 miles or so, with a few river crossings and downed trees. We waded up past our knees but were able to keep our shorts dry. We only saw two groups on the whole trail. Once the elevation picked up as we hiked up to the Dewey lake basin, there were many downed trees, some that required us traversing around them instead of over. There were some bugs once the evening set in, and around the lake once we arrived, but nothing a bit of bug spray and head net won’t handle.

We found a great campsite about halfway around the lake and even got in a quick dip around 8:00pm. The water felt warmer than the outside temps!

The hike in the morning was definitely more crowded, but so beautiful as we got so many views of the surrounding mountains and the wildflowers in blooming. We took a quick dip in the little pond that’s only about a mile from the trailhead, and many people were choosing to stop here for a rest and snack.

Overall, this was a great through hike, perfect for our group of four.

I did a 28 mile loop from Chinook Pass south on the PCT then east towards American lake and then I went north on the American Ridge Trail and then I doubled back to Dewey Lake via the Dewey Lake Trail.

The Dewey Lake Trail is pretty awesome, but it could definitely use a log out. This would be a great place for a weeklong work party to log about 200 trees off the trail. Part of the American Ridge was also full of logs in a few places, but not bad compared to Dewey Lake Trail.