THE LARCHES ARE TURNING! Cancel your Sunday plans, forget the Seahawks game, it’s time to lace up your hiking boots and get up into the mountains. 

You definitely earn your summit beer on this hike (~4k elevation is no joke!), but the fall foliage is so worth it! The trail is a little bushy for the first 1-2 miles, but other than that it’s not technical or exposed, just a type-2-fun cardio adventure up to the lake. I wish we had time for a summit scramble up to Mt Abernathy, but the 18-month-old in our party decided to take an impromptu dip in the lake (refreshing for grown-ups, but infuriating for toddlers), so we’ll have to save the peak bagging for another day!

The first day of fall was a perfect time to do this great hike, which is often snow covered in spring and can be scorching hot in summer.  No significant downed trees on the trail and generally good tread throughout, but there is quite a bit of vegetation over the trail, particularly between miles 1 and 3.  The out-and-back to the lake is 10 miles with 4,000 feet of elevation gain, making this a great workout!  The first 2 miles of the trail starts at a relatively gentle 15% grade, but then kicks into a nearly consistent 20% grade to the lake.  But the ever expanding views as you ascend out of the burned forest and into alpine meadows to the lake is worth the effort.  Nice to see so many young pine and fir seedlings taking root in the burned area.  Larches are just starting to turn at 7,000 feet and above - the peak show will likely be in the first couple weeks of October.  Come on up!

Awesome trip with ngie today getting up to Abernathy Peak. We tried late October last year, but ran into so much early season deep snow, we had to turn back, but today we got to the summit. This is twice this week that I have been able to get up to a peak that I had previously not been able to summit. It has been great making a second or third trip back this week, as the scenery has been beautiful!!!

We started at the Scatter Lake trailhead at 7:30 am. We both got up super early and drove to the trailhead. I came from I-90 and Hwy 97 and had no problem. Ngie came from North Cascades Hwy from the westside and ran into nighty road closures on the North Cascades Highway, and had to wait until 5 am when it reopened east of Marblemount. Beware of nightly closures, if heading that way in the early morning hours.

The lower section of the Scatter Lake Trail is getting quite overgrown with the vegetation encroaching the trail thru the old burn area. As the trail gains elevation above 4800 ft the trail is pretty much clear of the overgrown parts all the way to the lake. Tons of wildflowers and butterflies above 5000 ft. It is like this all the way up to about 6400 ft where the larches start to take over. They are still green with their needles. In a month or so when they turn colors, it will be beautiful up there. Quite a few larches are up and arounf the lake also.

Once at the lake we headed around to the right before heading straight up the super steep scree slopes up to the summit of Abernathy. The scree was not too bad, but getting on the rock was better. We had a short scramble up some rocks, before the final 500 ft gain up some more scree up to a saddle below  the summit. It’s then a walk up to the left up to the summit.  The views on the summit were awesome, even with the haze. The summit had so many bugs on it, that after signing the summit register, we dropped off the summit about 50 ft to avoid the bugs. We had no issue with bugs all the way to the summit. We only ran into huge horse flies as we made our final ascent to the summit, and the multitude of flying insects at the summit!!

We made good time from the summit down to the lake with some scree skiing. I brought gaiters but did just fine with low top trailrunners. Beware of sending small rocks down on your partners if going with a group. Rocks were small, and we were careful, so we didn't even put on our helmets. Once at the lake, we went around the lake the other way(west)

We finished at 3:45 pm. 11.5 miles RT with 5262 ft elevation gain. Awesome and fun trip!!

My 13-year-old son and I did a one-day climb of Abernathy, making the summit in just under five hours from the trailhead and doing a little fishing at Scatter Lake on the way back. The trail is in great shape with only two or three blowdowns about a mile from the lake. The lake basin still has a few small patches of snow. The scramble route up Abernathy is straightforward. The weather was variable, but the views were fantastic!

We ascended via the snowfields on the more open face just to the right of summit, but it might actually be easier to take the gully to the left. I'd guess the ascent route was 30% snow. 

Note that Greentrails says the trail to the lake is 4.7 miles, which makes a roundtrip hike to the lake more like 9.5 miles (rather than the 8.5 miles that WTA indicates). Based on our pace and time, I think the longer distance is correct. From the lake it's maybe a mile and 1,300 feet of climbing to obtain the summit. 

Logged out the trail up to the snowline at 6000 feet. Patches of snow, some thick in chute areas.  Did not make it all the way to Scatter Lake, but assume heavy snow on the final approach to the lake and around it.

The trail to Scatter Lake climbs at a brisk pace with some sections quite steep. The trail is clear of logs up to snow line and very little brush obscuring the trail and is in generally good condition.

Some wildflowers blooming, but the terrain is fairly dry and sun exposed, so not a riot of flowering plants.

Due to the fires, there are good views to the south of the ridge line above Lake Chelan.