Wow, what a great loop. This loop has been on my list to hike for several years and I'm so glad I was able to check it off. We started our hike at the Mountaineers Baker Lodge where we were staying for the weekend. We hiked the loop counterclockwise in hopes of the clouds clearing to see Mt. Baker later in the day. We started around 8am and there were around 20 cars in the Bagley Lakes parking lot. Most appeared to have been there overnight but there were some day hikers too.
We spent the morning in the clouds up to Herman Saddle. The grade to the saddle was pleasant and we crossed several small creeks running. I can only imagine what the view must be like at the top on a clear day. The clouds started clearing out once we started our descent into the lakes basin. The views of Iceberg Lake were very pretty. I loved walking through the area between Iceberg Lake and Hayes Lake but the mosquitoes were pretty bad when you stopped here. I'll have to come back to explore this area more in a backpack trip because it is so beautiful!
Once we got around the opposite side of Iceberg Lake the crowds started. There were amazing wildflowers and people were trampling them near the shoreline. Sad to see this happening. People were also crowding near the outlet of Iceberg Lake where there's a great view of Herman Saddle. Sooo many people. We didn't stick around and continued hiking to try and find a less crowded place to have lunch. The Mazama Lakes were also beautiful and this area didn't appear to be as crowded with day hikers. On our ascent out of the lakes basin not very many people were yielding to us hiking uphill. Day hikers and backpackers alike were ignoring us when we mentioned that its common hiking etiquette to yield to uphill hikers. Thank you to those of you who did yield! We breaked for lunch at the top of the long uphill ascent where the uncourteousness continued. A group of about 20 people arrived and started yelling and taking selfies on the rock ledges. Our group endured it and they moved on thankfully. Boy was that a loud group!
We finished out our hike by way of the Upper Wild Goose trail and hiked back down to Heather Meadows. The Upper Wild Goose trail was not a trail that I would care to repeat anytime soon. The stairs were so steep! I'm glad we were going down them because going up must be miserable. Since many in our group had hiked the day prior on half of the Bagley Lakes Loop, we finished the flatter other half back to the trailhead. All trails were in great shape and snow free. We finished our hike back around 3pm then went to get ice cream at the little store in Heather Meadows.
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