Another Remi et al. 2017 hike down in the books, and a thru-hike no less!
We started by planting one car at the Top Lake Trailhead. IMPORTANT NOTE: To access Pear Lake from the Top Lake Trailhead, the coordinates to the trailhead are 47.875357, -121.112286 (the map on the Pear Lake WTA site shows the Heather Lake Trailhead instead of the Top Lake Trailhead - the directions are correct but the map is not!). The road between Top Lake Trailhead and the Smithbrook Trailhead is bumpy but passable - there are some sharp rocks and large potholes but no flat tires! We then drove to the Smithbrook Trailhead to begin our hike in to Lake Janus!
We left around 5pm and arrived 3.5 mi and an hour later at Lake Janus just before nightfall - this was enough time to find a good spot, make dinner and set up our tents. Janus has mosquito larvae but no fliers - it was quite chilly that night. There's a camp toilet and several camp spots - it was a fairly popular spot with two other camping parties at the lake.
The next morning we left around 9am with the intention of having lunch at Grizzly Peak (which we accidentally passed - it's not really that prominent of a peak!) and then camping at Pear Lake for the night. We had lunch in a small meadow-rock park amongst the marmots. They whistled, we whistled, it was a good time. We continued and arrived at Pear Lake, despite many huckleberry picking stops, around 2pm (~8mi). It was mild but we managed a swim in Pear Lake - the water was great but there wasn't much sun to dry off in. Still worth it!
The night of the 16th was chilly!! It got down to ~30 degrees and was crystal clear out. The stars were beautiful.
We hiked out from Pear Lake via the Top Lake Trail to our car, 6.5 mi - then celebrated with beer and pizza at Blewett Brewing in Leavenworth.
Comments
Mtinka on Lake Janus and Grizzly Peak, Pear Lake, Top Lake
What is the level of difficulty from Smithbrook to Pear Lake? Would the 13 miles be a bit ambitious for first of 3 night hike?
Posted by:
Mtinka on Sep 25, 2017 12:21 PM
crilski on Lake Janus and Grizzly Peak, Pear Lake, Top Lake
I think going from the Smithbrook Trailhead to Pear Lake would be doable in one day if you had the full day - the trail in to Janus doesn't gain a ton of elevation quickly, there's a bit of a climb from Janus to Pear because of Grizzly peak but I think it's doable! Difficulty is all relative - the only reason we didn't go all the way in to Pear the first day was because we got to the Smithbrook trailhead after work (After planting the car at Top Lake Trailhead) and only had a few hours of daylight to find a place to camp. Janus was the perfect distance for that. It definitely wouldn't be the hardest 13 miles I've done if we had gone straight to Pear.
Posted by:
crilski on Sep 25, 2017 12:31 PM