Beautiful backpacking trip up to tank lakes last weekend, the wta mileage is quite off on this, based on my inreach and Gaia the trail is 10.8 miles. The trail was in good shape, however on the major incline past the river crossing there is a ground wasp hive. it's hard to miss, a giant boulder in the trail followed by a large rooted step. the nest is just below that rooted step. once in necklace valley the trail is quite easy to follow, the fall colors had really begun here. once past opal lake is when the real challenge begins as far as route finding goes. since there is no official trail to tank lakes you must follow Cairns left by prior hikers or bring a GPS and make your own route. my suggestion is to stay to the ridge in the center, both the left and right side have gullies that become more difficult. the snow started at about 5200 feet. At this point we were seeing 2-6 inches of snow. once up at the lakes it was possible to camp, but you need a free standing tent for the nice flat granite boulders. it got very cold at night, but worth every moment, and best part...no bugs!!!

Our plan was to spend one night at tank lakes. I wish we had spent one more night and relaxed in the valley - it was beautiful. Some earlier trip reports are very well written, so I'll skip the details.

The first five miles of the trail are flat until you reach the creek crossing, after which you gain almost 3000ft in ~4 miles to reach Jade lake. The ~1 mile of trail from Jade Lake to Opal lake was full of sweet berries! 

At the end of necklace valley, the trail will lead you to a boulder field. Keep pushing until you reach a creek flowing down. Cairns are scarce, but theres a faint trail. Once you get up the first boulder field and reach a relatively flat area, you will see a ridge line to your right. The cairns from this point onwards are scarce. We made a mistake by following the cairns, going much further ahead in the flat area and scrambling up the side of the slope - there was a lot of loose rock. We saw several others who went up the ridge line and followed it - it is much easier to follow! There are never ending boulders, but some cairns along the way will guide you to tank lakes. 

~24 miles and 4500 net elevation gain. 

I'll keep mine short seeing the trip report before this one did a pretty exhaustive (and great) job at giving a report.

That said we started early on Saturday morning after sleeping at the trailhead Friday night. Got started around 9 and ended up finishing around 3-4ish - there were 3 of us that were very experienced and one that wasn't, he'd probably be on only a handful on hikes, 1 backpacking trip and certainly nothing this long. That said, it's not a piece of cake trip but it's not the hardest thing in the world - this is a great trip for those that are trying to see some classic washington wilderness views without the long drive and off-trail bushwhacking/suffering. Trail starts off VERY easy amble for 5 miles and then turns up and climbs for the last 5 miles. The trail is easy to follow (though I will say the part just before the river crossing for some reason is tougher to follow on the way down). The lakes around Jade are nice enough (I stayed at Itswoot last year and it was really nice and we had it to ourselves) but the real gems are up top.

One you get up towards Jade there's a lot of little social trails that lead to either a campside or no where so try to stay on top of not wasting time and mileage following the wrong trail. We stuck to the right side of the valley/of Jade and kept following the valley until we hit some drainage with a good bit of tree fall and just kept scrambling up that and hugging the side of the valley. Eventually you come to a nice talus/morane field that you can scoot up for a thousand feet or so and you'll eventually see Chimney Rock and Tank Lakes.

The lake was surprisingly warm and very refreshing after a long day. Great to wash the sweat and dirt off. Ended up raining over night and all the next day which made the hike out zero fun but all in all it was awesome and the views were top notch.

Bugs were annoying but i've dealt with far worse. No other big call outs.

Started our hike late Friday morning, there were probably 5 cars in the lot when we arrived around 10:30 am. The road to the trailhead is okay, just a bit of "washboard" so it makes your car feel like it's going to rattle apart. 

The bugs were surprisingly very light at the start of our hike all the way to Jade Lake where we camped for the night. I did cave and use 30% DEET on my clothes to ward off the few mosquitos that were around. Although on day two: the mosquitos came out in hoards and were VERY hungry. Fly masks and DEET were barely able to keep me un-bitten. We wanted to get to Tank Lakes but ended up passing on it for now, I will definitely hit it next time though.

If you're a shroomer, there were many boletes and a BEAUTIFUL lobster mushroom up there. I found the boletes on the higher end of the trail, the lobster just a couple of miles in under some pine duff. Happy hunting!

The weather was great, although somewhat smoky and muggy. Jade lake is WARM as well as the river flowing into it. I definitely suggest taking a dip. (This is why you should never put the DEET on your skin, so you don't contaminate the lakes you swim in & filter water from!) 

My dog Liesl and I did a nice trip up the Necklace Valley. The goal was to try to go to Hinman and perhaps loop via Chain Lakes south of La Bohn Peak to Tank Lakes and Otter Point as a backup or extension.

I had previously visited La Bohn and Chain Lakes without any snow and Tank Lakes in winter. The idea was to see La Bohn and Chain with some snow, and Tank Lakes with a bit less ;).

Trailhead to La Bohn Lakes

I've had difficulties with hiking boots for very long day trips, and this was going to be a long one. I have a few pairs of hiking boots, but only a very old pair of Meindl boots fits me well enough for 20-30 mile hikes. They can't have crampons though, and I wanted those for Hinman. I've tried approach shoes, but the pair I got turned out to be a blister factory. I decided recently to get a pair of trailrunners and use those for long approaches, carry my boots, and switch when necessary. This trip was my first like this, and it worked out pretty well. It was much less of a torture for my feet than usual (although my 20 years old Meindl boots still are more comfortable!)

We started at 4am at the Necklace Valley trailhead to make sure that we continued our tradition of hiking the East Fork Foss with a headlamp ;). This ensured I had more than enough daylight to hike whatever we could do. I hate rushing with pressure of the sunset.

The hike was uneventful until the bridge across the East Fork Foss, with no blowdowns and pretty much perfect trail conditions. The state of the bridge is deteriorating further every time I visit, but the trunk is at least solid.

At Jade lake we walked by what looked like the camp of a solo hiker comfortably asleep. The path along Jade lake is now dry. We crossed the inlet of Jade lake, and after about 3.5 hours we reached the Necklace Valley cabin, exactly at the point the sun came up over the ridge. This valley does not get a lot of sun! There is currently some nice beargrass in bloom throughout the valley. Bugs were absent in the morning, but I was blissfully unaware of armies preparing in the bushes to assault me on the way out.

Our plan was to take the waterfall route to La Bohn Lakes, because even with crampons (which I carried for perhaps icy snow conditions on Hinman) the La Bohn Gap route is too sketchy for me. The waterfall route is entirely snow-free and in pretty good condition. A small section of the bootpath is wiped out by avalanche debris, but it's not a problem. If you don't know the route, then check my earlier trip report for a better description ( http://www.nwhikers.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8018734 ). Key is to keep following the forest line almost entirely until the top of the big boulder field.

La Bohn lakes and Hinman attempt

The lowest La Bohn Lake is melted out, while the largest still has some significant snow. Interestingly, the highest La Bohn Lake had a tin sheet of ice from the night. I didn't think it got that cold, so I'm not sure I understand the physics of that ...

Next, the plan was to head up to Hinman. We previously failed because it turned out to be surprisingly tricky to get up the ridge from La Bohn lake with my dog (my previous report has some great comments on routes). I came prepared this time to carefully explore the area and see if I missed an obvious route. Unfortunately, I could't find any route up that was Class Dog, or at least Class Liesl. The part she doesn't do is really quite trivial for people, but she really freaked out after a few attempts. I tried to lift her up there, but that caused even more stress. I didn't want to push it, so decided to abandon Hinman again. Who cares about summits anyway? I'd be cautious about attempting Hinman with a dog, unless your dog is pretty agile or there is snow coverage.

Chain Lakes

We headed down to Chain Lakes, which was still a bit too snowy to really explore the mining activity. I ran into a hiker there who apparently was camped at La Bohn Lakes (missed him!) and he explained me where the cabin is (I missed this on my previous trip). He did a multi-day trip from the Middle Fork. It was fun to visit the cabin briefly, and then I headed up the ridge west of Chain Lakes. I love the views from the top of this ridge. The Middle Fork really looks very impressive there.

Chain Lakes to Tank Lakes

I've found two different routes in online reports of traverses from Chain Lakes to Tank Lakes: one follows a route at about 5400ft, and the other slightly above 6000ft. The lowest one looked a bit easier with CalTopo slope shading, so that's the route we picked. The descent down from the ridge is a bit clumsy and required some luck in finding the easy way down, but it was all doable and didn't require any hands or veggie belays. After this, during the initial traverse there are a couple of big boulder fields to cross, which are a bit unpleasant but also doable. Finally, the granite slabs make for an enjoyable hike all the way to Tank Lakes.

Tank Lakes

All of the lakes still have snow floating around. We took a long break and a refreshing dive. Bugs were still just a minor annoyance here (but later on the day it would become a nightmare in the valley!).

Tank Lakes to Otter Point

We continued to Otter Point via Foehn Lake and traversing above Tahl Lake. I didn't really read anything about routes to Otter, but it seemed like the easiest route would be to stay at about 5800ft until Tahl Lake and then head up the ridge, traversing from a first forested high point to Otter. This worked fairly well, but there a lot of boulder fields. I am always concerned about my dog with all the deep gaps and sharp edges, but it appears it's easier for her than me. She was getting very warm it seemed, so I decided to go a bit higher and stay on snow as much as possible. The views from Otter Point are very nice, in all directions. I enjoyed seeing the West Fork Foss lakes from this angle, and the panorama of the central Alpine Lakes wilderness peaks is a really nice from here. It may be one of my favorite summits now! We signed the summit register with some familiar names (another first ascent for a Corgi! ;) ).

Otter to trailhead

I enjoyed the section back down into the Necklace Valley, again trying to stay on snow as much as possible (there is nice snow coverage below La Bohn Peak still). In the valley, bug hell started, and I basically just kept walking as fast as I could until the trailhead. i probably should have brought some repellent (which my wife did advice).

Stats

Time: 4am - 8pm (16 hours)
Distance: ~24 miles
Elevation gain: ~6200 ft

List of lakes you can see on this loop:

1. Jade Lake
2. Emerald Lake
3. Lake Ilswoot
4. Locket Lake
5. Jewel lake
6. Opal Lake
7. Foehn Lake
8. Tahl Lake
9. La Bohn Lakes
10. Chain Lakes
11. Williams Lake
12. Tank Lakes
13. Otter Lake
14. Azurite Lake
15. Angelina Lake
16. Chetwoot Lake
17. Iron Cap Lake