Mission Peak, Clara and Marion Lakes — Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024

Decided to go east today as forecast looked promising near Wenatchee area.

My buddy didn't have a chance to do a larch hike this season and she also wanted some snow hike. So we thought of going up to Mission Peak for some super late western larches + snow hike.

Route

We started from Mission Ridge parking lot and thought about going on a 'what seems to be a direct winter route from Clara and Marion Lakes'. 

Snow on the trail to lake Clara was pretty compacted but going offtrail was a total postholing and we didn't have our snowshoes so we abandoned that plan and decided to try the Squilchuck trail towards Liberty-Beehive road. Trail was nice. Snow was a little soft here but there were mountain bike tracks that made the trail easy to follow. The trail also had a fair amount of ups and downs.

We continued up on Liberty Beehive road. The snow was packed with ATV and Jeep tracks that made the ascent a breeze. There were also like a day/ maybe 2-day old snowmobile tracks on the decommissioned FR-330 /Mission Peak trail that made the trail easy to follow until the beginning of the ridge and tracks stopped. After that, we postholed up to our knees at times for about 0.3 mi until the summit.

The rocks were mostly snow covered but we could still see the remaining structures of the former lookout at the summit. 

I was pretty tempted to take the winter route on the way down to save some distance but we decided to just take the same trail as it was easier but a lot longer.

Views

Views along the trail and at the summit were stunning. I was expecting some larch sadness but larches still looked great although their needles were everywhere on the ground. The road walk was also surrounded by larches with a view as far as the desert making it less a slog :)

Lake Clara and (I think) Thea Lake looked frozen and the Mission Peak trail to the summit was a total winter wonderland. Very gorgeous.

Stats: 11.8 mi. RT, 7:44. Leisure pace.

More Information on this Trip Report

• https://www.gaiagps.com/public/ogEB51F8Luc85hOrj7wU3EH2
• https://www.alltrails.com/explore/recording/chelan-county-hiking-5a9542c?unfurl=false&utm_campaign=memory&showMemory=true&sh=d960ob