This was a two night trip in the Alpine Lakes to Jade Lake and Robin Lakes, respectively.
Road conditions are good the whole way. The Scatter Creek crossing was very low and not an issue at all in my Subaru Crostrek. There were plenty of lower clearance cars at the trailhead.
Jade and Marmot Lakes
The hike to Marmot Lake is easy going. The first 3 miles are flat and well maintained, if a little overgrown and muddy. After Hyas Lake the trail begins to climb, but it stays pretty mellow and never felt too bad. There was plenty of water sources along the way. Marmot is a big lake and it looked lovely. I swam on my way back down from Jade and the water was great, but the rocks were a bit mucky on the bottom.
The trail from Marmot to Jade is a rough boot path/scramble. It starts in the woods just above the shore and is pretty easy to follow. When you break out of the trees, you’re in rocks until it flattens out again towards the lake. There are cairns the whole way that are easy to spot. Overall, it wasn’t too bad. There was one short stretch that has you going straight up a chute of loose rock which I could have done without, but even on the way down I felt pretty stable. On the way down, I spotted a well established side trail to the right that I followed for a while. It kept me in the trees and off the rocks, but eventually I cliffed out and had to backtrack a bit until I could cut back over into a boulder field section of the trail.
Jade Lake was beautiful! Even on a weeknight there were around 10 tents, I can’t imagine the crowds on a weekend. The alpenglow on Lynch Peak was great at sunset! Bugs were present, but not too bad. They were worse in the morning than at night. The condensation was really bad here. I slept with my fly off to watch the stars and woke up soaked!
Tuck and Robin Lakes
After Jade, I backtracked the 5.75 miles to the Tuck and Robin Lakes trail junction. There’s a small stream running just after you turn onto the trail, other than that it’s dry all the way up to Tuck and dry between Tuck and Robin. The mile up to Tuck is straight up. There’s a lot of erosion which has led to a lot of big step ups and a ton of loose rocks on the trail. I found coming down to be more challenging than going up because of this. Tuck looked nice!
To get up to Robin Lakes, you first have to get around a big rock at Tuck. This was the most frustrating navigational part for me because there are a ton of different trails here. I think up and over is the most direct route. Once you cross the Tuck Lake outflow it’s pretty obvious where the trail is. From here, the trail is well marked with cairns and is more of a scramble. I don’t like heights and exposure, but I felt comfortable in all the sections where I had to pull myself up because there wasn’t much fall risk. At the end there are a couple of big granite slabs you have to walk up. On the way back down, it’s easy to get off track on the slabs. I just kept angling towards the west and eventually met back up again with the main path down. I found going up and down Robin Lakes way more fun and manageable than Tuck.
Robin Lakes were gorgeous and so worth the extra 1,000 of climbing! Sunset and sunrise were both great and the stars were incredible. The views of Mt. Daniel and Cathedral Rock are some of the best I’ve seen. Bugs were present and a bit of a nuisance here. It was also very busy for a weeknight– I’d guess there were close to 20 people, but there was enough space around the two lakes that it wasn't crowded.
Comments