Image Lake via Miners Ridge, Canyon Lake — Saturday, Sep. 2, 2017

I did a four-day backpack trip staring from the Sulphur Creek Trailhead and going to Image Lake, Canyon Lake and then back down via Miner's Ridge trail. I started very late (7 pm) and only got a little over 3 miles in, but found a nice campsite along the river. I passed several more beautiful campsites along the Suiattle trail and up Miner's ridge/PCT, especially at the suspension bridge at around 6.5 miles.

About a mile or so before reaching the suspension bridge, I ran into a group along the trail (some guys on a Parkinson's awareness hike and a horse wrangler (who had passed me at my camp earlier in the morning with her horses). She told me that three of the horses had spooked (from seeing llamas) and slipped off the trail and fell into a narrow gorge. Sadly two died from the fall and one survived but they didn't know how to get it out of the ravine. Luckily the Parkinsons awareness guys had walkie talkies and could help out with getting gear up from the creek. I continued my hike after helping to haul up some gear. A forest service ranger showed up, but I'm not sure how much she could do to help.

The trail the rest of the way up was very dusty, especially higher up out of the forest, but there's enough water along the trail to keep hydrated, and, during the last 2.2 mile stretch of switchbacks, great views and some huckleberries. 

The hike to Canyon Lake was quite challenging: overgrown and brushy, narrow and steep, many downed logs over the trail, and lots of up and down (about a 1,000 foot drop down to the lake in the last mile). I'm glad I did it as an overnight, since the 6.7 miles from Image Lake is quite the workout and would have made for a super long day hike. Plus, I had stunning Canyon Lake to myself and took my time enjoying the very plentiful huckleberries (deliciosum) along the way. The area around the lake is lightly used and carpeted with heather and huckleberries.

The last few days were smoke-filled hazy ones, obscuring even the mountains across the valley as I went down via Lady Miner's Camp and the Miner's Ridge trail back to the Sulphur Creek Trailhead.

A words of warning...bees and wasps seemed particularly active the entire time. I saw several paper wasp nests (one in the lower camp area next to Image lake).