East Fork Foss - Necklace Valley — Monday, Jun. 23, 2014

Central Cascades > Stevens Pass - West

Three of us decided to see how far up the valley we could get on a one night trip and ended up camping at Opal Lake. The first five miles were as expected - easy and well maintained. After crossing the bridge and boulder field at 5 miles the trail becomes pretty steep and muddy or loose in some places, especially the final push to Jade Lake. We had patchy snow before the boulder field leading up to Jade but nothing difficult. Snow was constant starting at the boulder field below Jade so we had to kick steps to get up. Skirting Jade was pretty difficult on the way in, but doable with poles or an ice axe. From the end of Jade, cross the stream to the right and follow the signs of a trail to emerald and then Opal Lake. We were pretty wiped out so we decided to camp on snow at Opal Lake. After a nice swim, we left most of our gear and continued up the valley and to the southwest. La Bohn gap looked pretty steep for a snow ascent so we headed towards tank lakes. We made it up to around 6150 feet on top of the ridge between Tahl and Tank Lakes and decided to call it a night (about 7pm now). I used crampons and an Ice axe for our excursion from opal to this point, others did not and were fine, although they would have helped. After soaking up the views of we headed back to camp, glissading about half the way down. The next morning we headed back but had much harder snow. Crampons were really useful, others had microspikes which worked as well. The worst part was skirting Jade Lake again. It would be pretty easy to fall in if you lost your footing. 23 miles round trip, max elevation 6150.