Rachel Lake, Rampart Ridge - Rampart Lakes — Monday, Jun. 30, 2025

My hiking group hiked to Rachel Lake and Rampart Ridge today.  We pulled up to the Th at 9:10 and the lot was half full.  It was sunny skies and 65 degrees when we hit the trail.  The new Vault toilet building was clean and stocked with rolls of TP.  It was also great to see several  Porta Potties randomly placed along the road by the river campsites after the Kachess Campground all the way to the TH.  Whatever jurisdiction who oversees the area is doing a great job of maintenance despite severe government funding cutbacks.  As mentioned in several prior trip reports there were several water crossings due to the snow melt.  No one in my group got their boots wet using the random logs and rocks to find routes over.  After the gentle first couple of miles this trail elevation basically goes straight up and side routes are everywhere to avoid where the trail is a rushing stream.  It was very helpful to have the route on a trail App to get you back on the right path.  I haven’t hiked this route for 30 year so it seems much more eroded.  Every step is step over a boulder or root.  We went all the way to the Ridge trail marker at Rampart Ridge and All Trails says we covered 9.2 miles, my Apple fitness App said 11.1.  It felt more like the later.   The trail is hard packed dry soil with loose silt on steep areas, except water crossings where extended puddles have formed.  We only had 2 short snow crossings from Rachel Lake up to the ridge.  At the top of the ridge snow was on the trail to about 1 1/2 depth towards Lila Lake / Alta Mtn and Rampart Lakes.  Due to our later arrival further exploration was saved for another day.  Wildflowers were blooming from the start and were popping up all the way to the ridge and varied by what zone you were in. We saw vanilla leaf, wintergreen, queen’s cup, wild rose, tiger lily, saxifrage, lousewort, monkey flower, spirea, lupine, bunchberry, penstemon, Columbine, Lewisia Columbiana, arnica, elderberry, mountain ash and more.  Trail traffic was moderate, backpackers were descending and day hikers were continually heading up and down the trail.  We stopped at the lakeshore on exposed boulders to eat our lunch and soak our feet in the water. It wasn’t breathtaking cold, but know one was swimming.  We were envious of a hiker who brought an inflatable and was floating near the lake shore.  No real wildlife sightings, a couple chipmunks and a few varied thrush were calling in the woods along the route.  We were glad we made it but a long day for our aging group.  The heat and descent were both factors on our trail time. It was 6:30 we walked back down to the trailhead.  Another fantastic day out in nature with friends.