East Fork Foss - Necklace Valley, Tank Lakes, Iron Cap Mountain & Otter Point — Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022

Spent three nights at Tank Lakes and took day hikes to Iron Cap Mountain and Otter Point. Fourth night at Jade Lake. 

Sunday 8/21 hiked up to Tank from the Necklace Valley TH. The mosquitoes at Tank Lake made quite a show of force, to the point where eating outside of the tent, even with a head net, was pretty uncomfortable. Was glad I brought my Crazy Creek chair so I could sit and hang out in the tent and escape the swarming clouds of mosquitoes, even if I could still hear them buzzing around constantly. 

Monday 8/22 day hike from Tank Lakes to Iron Cap Mountain: Getting to Iron Cap Gap was pretty straightforward and well-cairned. However, I couldn't quite figure out the route to the summit of Iron Cap approaching from Iron Cap Gap. The route up/around Iron Cap involve lots of boulder/talus traversing and I spent some time crossing through trees higher on the mountain and employing a lot of "tree belays" to make it across. I made it to the east peak of Iron Cap which is about 200 feet below the true summit, but quite a ways traversing to the northwest to get over to the actual summit. There is no easy way to get directly from the east summit to the true summit, as there is basically a chasm separating the two. 

Tuesday 8/23 day hike from Tank Lakes to Otter Point: While on Iron Cap I looked over at Otter Point to the north and it appeared to hold potential for a beautiful ridge walk, so I gave it a go on Tuesday. You can get up to the ridge by approaching from the second/northern Tank Lake, and then immediately to the northwest there is a fairly gradual ridge of large boulders. After a couple hundred feet of third class scrambling over said boulders, you're up on the ridge and can enjoy ambling along for a ways, with a bit of third class here and there, until you reach the summit of Otter Point. There are a few places where you need to cross over from the north to south side, but it's pretty straightforward. Just follow the most obvious line and try to avoid heavy tree/brush bushwhacking. There is a path that is discernible at times, but it didn't seem like Otter Point gets a ton of visitors. In the summit register which we were somewhat surprised to find, there were only four other ascents in 2022. 

Bugs at Jade Lake were not bad at all -- hardly any mosquitoes and mostly just tiny, innocuous flies. 

Overall a great time out in the mountains!