East Fork Foss - Necklace Valley — Friday, Jul. 12, 2013

Central Cascades > Stevens Pass - West

Rachel, Ben,and I spent some time in the Necklace Valley from Friday, July 12 through Sunday, July 14. We started late Friday afternoon and camped on a sandy spot on the shore of the river, about five miles in. This part of the trail is flat. Next day up to the lakes themselves. Camped at Emerald Lake. We saw perhaps three other tents in the entire valley, and there seemed to be enough campsites to accommodate plenty more parties. Ground cover along the trail was diverse,including the usual suspects: lily family (false solomon's seal, false lily of the valley, clasping twisted stalk, queen's cup, trillium, skunk cabbage, false hellibore), saxifrages (foam flower, youth-on-age, Mertens' saxifrage), deer fern and bracken, even a few maidenhair ferns, thimbleberry, and salmon berry (only a few). Lots of huckleberries. Trees mostly mountain hemlock and red cedar, with yellow cedar and some firs higher up. We were buzzed by a few hummingbirds. Saw a water ouzel (dipper)--gray with a surprisingly short tail. Tons of frogs. As for the lakes--Jade, Emerald, and Opal (strung in a straight line in that order) are pretty shallow. Locket and Ilswoot are deeper, swimmable, larger, far more beautiful. They're at around 4500 feet, wooded. We spent some time in the basin below La Boehm gap. Trail is snow- free, except for some patches, up to the basin. We heard Tank Lakes were reachable without having to cross snow fields, but we opted not to go there. Mosquitos were negligible along the river, more plentiful at the lakes. Perhaps a 6 on my personal 10 point scale, with 10 being the worst. They seemed to like Ben the best, so we used him as bait. All-in-all, a nice trip.