Crow Lake Way, Basin Lake & Union Creek — Saturday, Jul. 25, 2009

Mount Rainier Area > Chinook Pass - Hwy 410

This is kind of a brutal hike. The trail starts at the Crow Lake Trailhead. To find the trailhead, locate the outdoor potties and imagine that you are stepping out of one of the toilets. Walk straight ahead and you will find the trailhead. The trail is in good shape and there are plenty of switchbacks going up to the turnoff to Crow Creek Lake. I started at 6:30 so it was still pretty cool. Starting at the turnoff to Crow Creek Lake, the trip transformed into one of the worst hikes I have had. I have hiked this before so I know there are a lot of water crossing and the trail is steep, but this time the mosquitoes were overwhelming. Even with DEET they were in my mouth, eyes and ears. Java (my 4 legged companion) was covered by them. The good news is that the trail is easy to follow and it won't be crowded. There are 3 places where you cross a field and the trail is not very clear. My advise is to walk straight across. Pretend that there is an arrow that extends in the same direction as the trail that you entered on and you will find the trail on the other side (helps to look for tell tale signs like cut logs as there are not too many of them in the mountains). The trail out of Little Crow Basin is hard to follow. There is a 3 walled shelter for horses at the basin and a sign that tells you where Trail 2000 comes in.Continue straight at the sign (don't go right) and you will be on a trail that will take you toward Basin Lake. As you go up the hill the trail cuts off to the left and a game trail goes straight. If you are like me you will follow the game trail for a ways before you come to the conclusion that it does not look "right". Once you get over "the next ridge" you should see Basin Lake off to your left. Unfortunatley there are a lot of unmarked trails at this point and you might find yourself by the lake even though you want to stay above it. It is a nice clean lake. We met 3 people there, one guy packed in with horses and the other 2 hiked from Crystal. I took the Basin Trail (987) to Union Creek. When you hike into the lake from north you can see where the Basin Trail goes over yet another ridge south of the lake. From the lake, both the Basin trail and 2000 can be located by heading due west. The Basin Lake trail is pretty steep but for me the clouds had moved in, the mosquitoes were gone and the hike turned out to be pretty nice. Union Creek is a couple of miles down on the left. Union Creek is pretty steep where it hits the Basin Lake trail but after that it morphs into a really nice hike. Once you get the the Union Creek trailhead there is a trail (snowshoeing) that runs on the north side of 410. There is a nice wodden bridge that leads from Union Creek trail to this one. Follow that for about 3 miles and you will be back where you started. LOTS of flowers and butterflies - and those mosquitoes.