Rachel Lake — Saturday, Aug. 31, 2024

Warning included for parents bringing young children on this hike, or any alpine adventure. 

Took my 13 and 9 yr old boys to experience Rachel lake and the Ramparts. We arrived Saturday morning 0645 to a nearly full parking lot at the trail head. Not a suprise considering the 3 day weekend. Weather was clear and pleasantly cool at that elevation. Long sleeves and hoodies to start. Having read previous reports of hornets on the trail we knew to watchout and avoided any bee stings. I logged the nest locations by milage (see below) but there were still a few more. If you're allergic be VERY cautious with this hike. Otherwise, the bugs weren't bad after applying repellent. Despite a couple confusing switchbacks the trail was clear. I should point out that the total distance  my Garmin GPS watch tracked had this hike pegged at just over 5 miles, not 4 as listed. The trail really starts going vertical the last two miles and with full packs numerous breaks were required for the youngest. Payoff though by 11am when our spent team of three reached the lake. Beautiful!  There were a scant few spots left for pitching tents and the spots taken were conspicuously located where you had to walk very close around them to find others. Just the nature of the landscape unfortunately. Worth noting also, the "toilet" up there is litterally a small disintegrating wooden box that is overflowing. Plan to bury your business! We continued through to find an open site midway down the lake where we dropped packs and took a load off. Water was a pristine blue green and the sun was just about to clear the mountains. Would have definitely gone for a swim, but we decided to stretch our legs and explore the shoreline and boulder field further north. This is where things went sideways. A two man rock my youngest was balancing on was loose and shifted under him, causing him to lose balance. When he slipped, he came down hard on a sharp edge and fractured both bones in his arm. Its a fluke accident of course but a good reminder to be much more cautious when you're that far from civilization with young kids. I fashioned a splint for the arm back at camp; gutted his pack into mine and we packed up and hiked back out- to the ER. Hopefully I can get them to try this one again one day. Up and down 10miles with full packs was damn brutal. 

Bees/hornets
1.25 mi. Looking at the river directly in front of root ball on boulders
2.88mi., left side of trail near tree
3.85mi., roots of tree on right after a cut off trail, then again further up on right about 20-30 ft.
4.5mi. top of Boulder in trees