This is a tale of two trails. The maintained trail up to the lakes is a super highway and my old knees sure enjoyed it. All through forest until it pops out at the lakes, which are nestled in a scenic basin.
Then.. up the boot track. Easy to find, as others have noted - a bit past the lakes, near the high point of the trail, obvious path off to the right. After a flat intro, it gets really steep - as in, straight up, and rather gnarly. Fortunately this does not last long. After that, it's a well defined boot track which goes steadily and steeply up to the ridge where... this white thing suddenly appears - the snow cap of Rainier which fills your eyes from the ridge line.
The trail is still pretty clear up to the first rocky summit block. I got up there fine, just a touch of class 3 but the rock is very solid. From there, it looked pretty tough and I did not seen an obvious route to get to the slightly higher summit, so I just hung out soaking in the views.
The fall foliage in the upper meadows is stunning at the moment.
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