Venus Lake, Spade Lake & Waptus Lake via Waptus River — Friday, Jul. 16, 2021

I did a two night overnight trip, using Waptus Lake as a base camp and taking a day hike to Spade and Venus Lakes. Other recent trip reports do a good job of describing how much “fun” it is to get from Waptus to Spade….which is one of the reasons I made my base camp at Waptus. There are lots of good sites around Waptus, as well as a toilet, which I don’t think Soade has.

The only real snow on the route is near the beginning of the climb up from Spade to Venus. I had poles but it could be done without. There is still a lot of snow near the falls, with some snow bridges forming, but there are safe ways up to the right.

These two lakes are absolutely gorgeous - well worth the effort to get to them. I noticed a boot path to the left of Venus, which I took up to a pass above the lake for more gorgeous views.

As for bugs…your results may vary. The day I hiked In, people coming out said the bugs were terrible. However, there was a breeze in the late afternoon and evening both days I was there (with gale force winds when I was trying to put up my tent!), so bugs weren’t too bad at Waptus. I got a little annoyed by bugs at Venus. On the trail out this morning there were a couple spots where the bugs really got me - I put my net on at one point, but I still had bites on my shoulders when I got home.