Spectacular views and mountain lake experience, after one trudges through a long, arduous ascent (Well, except for the ravenous hordes of mosquitoes at the top). Starts off in lovely, flat, wide, soft wooded trail, almost deceptively, until once begins a challenging ascent after crossing Foss River. Then the ""fun"" starts: muddy, rooty, rocky, steep, thus making a very slow trudge or ""slog"" as one descending hiker put it. When finally arriving at the string of jewel-like lakes making up the ""Necklace"" at the top, unfortunately we were attacked by swarms of mosquitoes. On the way up, everyone warned us to make sure we had lots of DEET. They were right. Matching the rather warm daytime temperatures was a rather chilly, near-freezing overnight. The views, serenity, rushing water at the top would make this trip even more successful when the 'squitoes have gone into some hopefully dormant state later in the summer.

Picked a good day for a long hike. The task of pulling on the boots at the trailhead took long enough for a cloud of mosquitoes to form. Hit the trail at 7:30 and promptly outran the bugs. The lower trail to the river is beautifully maintained (nice work pushing back the vegetation). As previously reported, the trail past the river gets steeper and is often quite muddy (although some pretty heroic trail work has been done here as well). It proved to have been a good idea to stop for a food break in the woods because the bugs were not too bad in the shade. Up at the lakes, near mid-day, the bugs were thick. Decided to push on to the LaBohn Tanks without lunch. The tanks are about another 1000 feet up. The first patch of snow I saw was at the far end of Opal Lake, near the upper end of the valley. Got to the waterfall at the end of the valley and decided to head around the rockfall on snow (swinging right, away from the waterfall) but found that the top snowbank was a little too steep for my liking (even with an ice ax in hand) and wound up traversing back to the falls on the rocks. From the top of the rockfall it is a distinctly airy-ish ascent along a faint boot tread that climbs beside the falls, with patches of steep snow (icy under an inch of corn) on route. The patches are small and will probably not last very long. The Tanks are just melting out with that peculiar blue-green glow of slowly warming tarns (and radiation vessels in science fiction movies). This stark and rather barren locale supported a pretty fair population of bugs. On return I really enjoyed a late lunch/early supper at a campsite about 50 feet above Opal Lake. However, a flannel shirt and a t-shirt was not enough, a cloud of mosquitoes arose from my back each time I shrugged my shoulders. DEET helped keep my arms and face clear, although it gave the apple an unattractive aftertaste. Headed down and got back to the car about 7:40. Curiously, there were no bugs at the trailhead. Having been gone from Washington for several years I decided to try a stop at Zekes, and although the fare isn't bad I'm still looking for a Good Food haven along Rt. 2.

At 9:30 AM Saturday I hit the Necklace Valley Trail, planning to hike as far as I could and still be back at the car by 4 PM. No other cars in the parking area-a perfect hike for solitude. Many creeks are rushing down across the trail to join Foss River, but there's no problem crossing any of them. Wet foilage hanging over the trail in the meadow areas got my boots and clothing temporarily soaked. Many wildflowers were in bloom, also saw several frogs jumping off the trail. Got to the log bridge to cross the Foss, and there standing on the bridge was a brown BEAR, looking down into the river! She didn't see me immediately, but then I backed away and she looked up, and ran off the opposite bank. I decided it was my turn-around time. Met two hikers comming in and alerted them of the bear. GREAT HIKE!

Why haven’t I hiked this trail before? I guess I figured it was “too far out of the way” but turns out it is a quick 4.2 miles from Hwy 2 and you’re ready to hike! I was very happy to see my dog Mittens get so excited at the trailhead in the rig. She almost couldn’t wait for me to get ready and loaded up with gear before letting her out! She is learning quickly…. The day was absolutely perfect for forest photography: thick overcast and occasional showers to make the lush green glow with life! There is no dirt in the Necklace Valley since the lush carpet of moss and flowers covers it all! I didn’t hike a step all day without having dozens of trilliums and yellow violets within view. We passed a huge herd of calypso orchids in full bloom at about milepost 1.5 and Mittens wondered why I came to a screeching halt and was looking through my cameras for the next 15 minutes! The moss covered rough sawn “boardwalks” were so beautiful as they winded through marshy areas filled with the huge leaves of the skunk cabbage plants. At three miles we passed the small lakes off of the river and by milepost 4 we were eating lunch down smack on an overlook of the mighty East Fork Foss River. The roaring torrent of the spring melt was so loud I was having a hard time hearing what all Mittens was trying to tell me! Ha ha ha. We turned back just prior to the river crossing at five miles as I knew we wouldn’t be trying to cross THIS river on a foot-log with a hyper 15-month old border collie in tow! Hiking back we both were re-energized from our break and food break (Mittens loves P&J sandwiches as much as I do!). We finally actually saw other humans on the trail when we got back about two miles from the trailhead as two middle aged ladies were on their annual hike up this lovely forest valley. Where were the people? This is one of the longest low elevation spring forest hikes available in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness and yet no one was using the trail the day before Memorial Day weekend? Strange. We took one last long 30+ minute stop at the incredible mossy bridge over a huge creek about 1.5 miles from the trailhead as I photographed many angles of the bridge, the water, the waterfalls, the mossy rocks, and the lazy dog by the bridge. It was nice to see that both of us were ready to succeed at hiking eight miles together, and we should be well ready to tackle the summer and fall mega-trips for our next photo project together that will take us to all corners of the Northwest together over the next 15 months! Got my first skeeter bite of the 2003 season also, which is well worth commemorating. FLORA NOTED: (partial list) Western trillium Fairy bells Wild ginger Yellow violet Devils club Thimbleberry Salmonberry Twinflower

I managed to get my Subaru wagon up to the Tonga Ridge road junction, and probably could have driven farther, but why risk getting stuck to save a half of a mile? The snow ended soon after the summer trailhead was reached, and stayed snow-free for almost 2 miles. The snow kicked in again around the wilderness boundary. It was 6 inches deep at it's maximum. At about 3 to 3 1/2 miles from the car was a beautiful swampy, grassy meadow leading down towards the river. Only two other people were seen, and I was there all day. This is a much better winter hike when you don't have to walk almost two miles just to get to the trailhead. I started at 10 am and finished up at 4 pm, 6 hours to go 7 miles with a little bit of off-trail exploration thrown in also.