Lake Wapiki — Monday, Sep. 7, 2015

South Cascades > Mount Adams Area

Since it was a holiday. we decided to hike in the most remote and least traveled corner of the Indian Heaven Wilderness. There were a handful of cars at the trailhead so we did not expect to have total solitude, yet we met less than a half dozen people on Lemei Trail 34. Pretty good for the Labor Day holiday. The trail is a steady climb, with occasional switchbacks, as it follows a ridgecrest upward through a mixed eastside forest that includes western larch. The understory is beargrass and huckleberry, already totally devoid of fruit. At 3.1 miles, we reached the junction with Trail 34A to Wapiki Lake. We stayed on the main trail and climbed steeply up a ridge that forms the northern rim of Wapiki Lake's basin. The terrain begins to have open meadows with views northeast to Mount Adams and north to Mount Rainier. Hiking beyond Wapiki Lake is highly recommended. There are excellent views from a cinder slope about a mile, and 600 feet higher, beyond the Wapiki Lake trail junction. We stopped here for a lunch break with a view, overlooking Wapiki Lake below us and Mount Adams and Mount Hood in the distance. We also could see the Trout Lake and Glenwood valleys, the Simcoe Mountains and Columbia Hills in the distance. Wapiki Lake lies in the extinct volcanic crater of Lemei Rock, the highest point in Indian Heaven at 5,925 feet, and is rimmed on three sides by 400 feet high walls. The crater filled by Wapiki Lake was the source of some of the most extensive lava flows out of the Indian Heaven Rift some 300,000 years ago. After lunch, we hike cross-country down to Wapiki Lake's shore. Wapiki is probably the most beautiful lake in Indian Heaven. According to The Columbian newspaper, the lake is stocked every other year with 500 tiny rainbow trout that grow to a catchable size. Despite being stocked this year, we didn't see any fish rising while we were there. We did meet a large family group camped at the lake with high-spirited children who enjoyed howling like wolves to hear their echoes off the rim so it wasn't exactly serene and quiet. Also at the lake, we saw several American pipits foraging on the shoreline. From Wapiki Lake, we followed the spur trail back to the main trail and returned the way we came. Along the way, we saw a mixed flock of Clark's nutcrackers and gray jays feeding on western white pine cone seeds. As we watched, a Sharp-shinned Hawk flew through the trees several times, provoking a lot of squaking from the annoyed bigger birds. Our hike was 8.5 miles and 1,800 feet elevation gain.