High Divide - Seven Lakes Basin Loop — Saturday, Sep. 13, 2025

This one has been on my radar for years.  It is in all of my Washington hiking guidebooks, and in my relentless pursuit of doing all 100 classic Washington hikes, I was lucky enough to get a permit.  I arrived to a ~75% full trailhead on Friday 9/12. Privies are in rough shape but stocked.

Started the loop counterclockwise at 9:30am and reached a busy deer lake at noon for lunch. Folks were fishing and it seemed like they were getting some bites here.

After continuing on from deer lake the trail transitions from beautiful forest to beautiful tarn-dotted meadows, and continues climbing the whole time. Between deer lake and lunch lake are more huckle/blue berries than I have seen outside of the South Cascades. A true feast.

I reached lunch lake at 3:30pm and searched for a campsite. Most were occupied by the time I got there but ended up finding the perfect site. The privy at lunch lake was unusably full, which was a massive disappointment. No ranger checked for permits here either. In fact, I didn’t see a single ranger on the entire loop.

After a surprisingly good night sleep (it was deafeningly quiet at the lake), I broke camp and filtered water / ate before hitting the trail. My bear canister was undisturbed.

I left lunch lake at 8:15am. The climb out of the basin was steep but not as bad as I expected. What surprised me was how much further I had to climb to reach the high divide proper. Maybe I was worn out but getting to those first good views of Mt Olympus was the most challenging part of the hike in my opinion.

And the views were magnificent. I was treated to a morning cloud inversion while the early sun danced off of the glaciers. The stretch of trail between lunch lake and heart lake was incredible. It truly lives up to the hype.

I arrived at heart lake at 11:30am and stopped for lunch. It was busy here. The privy there was in good usable condition.

Back on the trail, I was surprised by how many more miles of meadows lie between heart lake and the sol duc river. The descent was relentless and it did feel like a bit of a slog to get back to the river. The remainder of the trail back to the trailhead was also a slog but I was tired at this point. Don’t get me wrong, the forest was spectacular. Massive old growth, and the trail was much softer underfoot here, too. A welcome change after many rocky miles.

I reached the trailhead at 4:00pm. One of the best loops I’ve ever done. When I return I will plan on going counterclockwise, again, to lunch lake basin, exploring the basin further, and returning the same way as an out-and-back.