Found: REI hat on the PCT about 2 miles north of Janus. See photo and add a comment if it's yours.
Quick overnight to Janus and day hike from there out towards Grizzly Peak. It's around 4 miles to Janus via the Smithbrook trailhead and the PCT. We got to Janus around 12, set up camp and headed north on the PCT for a dayhike. Got to an overlook for Glasses Lake, about 3 miles past Janus, and turned around there. From Janus the PCT ascends about 1100 feet on a steady incline through wide spaced forest and huckleberries.
Although the campsites at Lake Janus were mostly empty when we arrived at noon, by evening at least 7 parties were camped in various spots. Lots of spread out camping and two toilets there. Oh, did I mention the blueberries? SO plentiful and perfectly ripe right now all around the camp areas.
Janus is a calm, shallow lake, nice and quiet but also so shallow and muddy around the edges that it's a little hard to get water from. Consider collecting at least what you can carry from the beautiful creek and crystal clear pool 0.4 miles south of there on the PCT instead.
Next day, Saturday, on our way back to car, we took a break at the intersection of the PCT and Smithbrook trail. There we watched with some amusement as group after group came up and stopped, confused, trying to figure out which way to Lake Valhalla, since most apparently didn't have enough of a map or info. Got to the point where I just kept saying "left" every time a group hesitated there. Counted at least 70 hikers heading up the Smithbrook trail. I wondered how many ended at Janus.
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