Headed up to Tuck & Robin lakes this past Friday for a two night / three day trip. Left the trailhead at 11:05 and it was an easy two miles in to Hyas Lake - from there the climb started out moderately until we reached the turn off at about 5 miles in. The climb starts out pretty easy at the turn off and gets slow going about a mile in. There is lots of scree and loose rock and tree branches to navigate around. Trail is in pretty good shape for the most part - beautiful views of Cathedral Rock and Mt. Daniels as you climb. You will be able to see Hyas lake as you climb upward as well. Pretty technical / difficult climb as you get up higher. Once you get to Tuck you need to climb / scramble over a big boulder to get to the lake in order to walk on some logs to continue moving along the lake to Robin lakes. My friend and I got pretty turned around on our way back and tried to circumnavigate the huge boulder only to find out you really do have to climb alllll the way over it to get to continue on the trail in either direction.
From Tuck to Robin it took us 2.5 hours. The user made trail was laid out pretty meticulously with cairns. They are everywhere and pretty hard to miss. There has to be at least three different routes to get to Robin and I recommend recording your trip on Gaia if you can so you can follow it on your way back. You can definitely tell this trail is user made and I was nervous going up with my pack on. Had to take it off and throw it up some boulders at one point. Definitely easier going up than going down. After climbing through the trees you come to a section of large granite slabs with lots of cairns marking the way diagonally to the left up to a trail. For me it was really nerve wracking walking on these granite slabs - if you fall you literally fall off the mountain… there are some trees to catch up but it is quite a way down. The granite is pretty sticky but I didn’t fully trust it. The views of Mt. Daniel and Cathedral rock were breathtaking!! We made it up to Robin at around 5 so it took about 6 hours total to get up and that includes taking a couple breaks and stopping for lunch at the junction. We snagged a campsite right across from the horseshoe in the first lake and set up the tent before it started raining! Thankfully only sprinkled for a half hour or so and we were able to make dinner outside and enjoy the beauty of the lakes :) We saw only one other tent set up between the two lakes and than a single hiker set us tent up nearby ours on the other side of the lake around 7 PM. We were super cozy that night and slept from about 9 PM to 9 AM.
Made oatmeal and coffee in the morning and then took off for a day trip up to the three Granite Potholes. We followed the trail along the second lake and then started climbing up the granite in the right direction. There were just a couple cairns marking the way so we bounced between user made trails and granite rocks to make our way in the right direction. We caught sight of higher pothole first and then the middle, lower, Lake Phoebe, and Lake Leland. A friendly ranger called to us from the top of Trico Mountain and pointed us in the right direction to a trail taking us down to the middle pothole. We met him there and chatted a bit before having a lunch. We then made our way to the top pothole following the stream / trail from the most southern point of the middle pothole. I read that the top pothole was more striking, but found it to be the same as the other two. Still - really beautiful views from that high up! We saw two Marmots as well on the way back to camp.
On our way back we climbed up to the tree line between the two Robin lakes to get a view of both lakes. At this point in the day it was 4 PM on Saturday and there were five other groups up at Robin - so not crowded at all! Felt like just the right amount of people to have around for safety and we felt like we were still on our own. We started to get rained on just as we got back to camp. Hid out in our tent for a bit and drank wine. Eventually decided to just muscle up, get out of the tent, and make dinner real quick. The rain literally stopped as we walked out of our tent! So we enjoyed dinner outside while taking in the lake :) Views don’t get old!
Woke up to rain pouring down on Sunday morning, but once we got out of our tent it wasn’t too bad. Cold breakfast of a bar and granola. We packed up quickly and headed down to the car at 7:30. Getting from Robin to Tuck was slowwwww going. Mostly on my part because I need new hiking boots and didn’t trust them, especially with my pack on. Definitely a lot of booty scooting going on plus the rain made me extra cautious. We followed the trail down the granite rocks pretty much in a diagonal line to the left. There is a trail at the bottom of the granite rocks that we took. Slow going yet again with lots of scrambling, throwing our poles down the rocks, and getting on our bottoms in order to move down the trail safely. Slipped a couple times going down, but nothing major. Took us 2.5 hours to get down to Tuck. There seemed to be a cairn every time we looked up. We got really turned around at Tuck trying to get to the other side of the boulder. The rain started pouring at this point! After walking all around the boulder and taking the trail down to Tuck’s pot hoping it would circumnavigate we decided to just climb directly over, which we had done getting there but had forgotten. There is a handful of cairns marking the way once you are up on the boulder. Plenty of footholds and handholds to use, but still pretty technical. We made it to the other side completely soaked through our rain gear with soaked feet. We powered our way down to the junction as quickly as we good, but yet again it was slow going due to the amount of rocks and branches and big steps down. We got passed by 4 or 5 single guys / groups of guys heading down as well. There were no other ladies on the trail at Robin lakes besides some we saw at Tuck on our way up Friday. Saw only two groups heading up our whole way back. Once we climbed down to about a mile from the junction we started picking up pace and cruising all the way back to the car. We didn’t stop once since we were soaked through at that point! Made it back to the car at 1 so took us 5.5 hours to get down from Robin.
Super glad we did the trip this past weekend even with the rain forecast! We got lucky and barely got rained on and it was not crowded. There were 15 cars in the parking lot including ours when we got there on Friday at 11 and maybe 25 or so there when we got back. Still a couple spaces.
I would say be really careful heading up to Robin with an overnight pack on - no matter the weather. I agree with the expert rating that WTA has. The road was totally fine. Couple potholes here and there which were fine in my friend’s Subaru and my Corolla could have driven up it pretty easily too. Saw a car at the trailhead that was littler and lower to the ground than my corolla so it’s doable in any car. I’ve been on way worse forest roads!
Also, larches look like they are going to turn in a week or two.
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