Waptus Lake via Waptus River, Waptus Horse Ford & Spade Lake — Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009

Snoqualmie Region > Salmon La Sac/Teanaway

The 9 mile trail to Watpus along the river is in great shape even though you have to share it with horses. It was dusty and littered with horse droppings, but once you meet up with the Watpus River, the scenery makes up for it. The mosquitoes were only real bad in a few spots, mainly when you stopped walking. My 10 year old daughter, sister and boyfriend, dog and I made it from the trailhead to the horse ford in about 5 hours. The main trail bridge is washed out, so the horse ford is the alternative. It was well signed and easy to navigate. The ford was easy, it's about 1 1/2 ft deep, but doable. Be sure to bring water shoes- we saw one hiker crossing with plastic trash bags over his boots (doesn't work). We found a great camping site on the lake, about 1/2 mile up the trail after we reached the lake. Our sublime views quickly faded and we were sprinkled on every day for each of our five days there,but in usual Washington fashion, nothing lasted long. The only respite from the overcast skies was when on Wednesday night, it cleared, and we got to see the meteor shower. We caught a few fish there, including one 16" probably 3lb lunker that I thought was going to pull my daughter into the lake from the log that she was fishing on. We left our base camp and hiked up to Spade Lake. This trail is in fair shape, but has not been maintained in a while. There are blowdowns to scramble over and lots of brush. Also lots of huckleberries, which slowed our progress. It is a steep 4 miles until the traverse into the upper valley. The lake itself is gorgeous and we caught about 6 fish within 10 minutes of putting our poles in the water. Until the mosquitoes, then the cold wind and rain sent us back down the trail. This is a popular trail and when we were leaving on Friday, we saw lots of people making the hike or horseback ride in. We also saw the WTA gear being delivered by horseback for the scheduled trail work this weekend. All in all: 5 days out, 32 miles total, 12 fish, a tired dog and 10 year old. Time to dry out the gear and plan the next trip.