Tuck and Robin Lakes, Deception Pass, Marmot Lake, Jade Lake, Peggy's Pond, Mount Daniel & Cathedral Rock — Tuesday, Sep. 6, 2022

A Salmon La Sac Grand Slam! We had a North Cascades backpacking trip planned, but the recent fires forced us to make a quick plan B. I strung together some trails in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness that needed no permits so we could still make it out this week since we all already had the time off. We saw (almost) all the sights that the end of the Salmon La Sac Road has to offer!

The plan was to hike to Tuck and Robin Lakes the first day, come down and get over to Jade Lake the second night, then take the PCT over to Cathedral Pass and Peggy's Pond for the last night. Creating a sort of loop around Hyas Lake and getting up to all the alpine lakes around it. 

Day 1: TH to Robin Lake 7.88 miles/ 3,279ft+, 850ft- elevation/ 7 hours

We started at the Cathedral Pass TH, walked up the road maybe 100 feet to the Tucquala Meadows TH and started up the Deception Pass Trail. This section of trail is easy going, following up the valley and then along Hyas Lake. At the end of the meadow the trail starts heading uphill until you get to the junction with Tuck/Robin Lake trail. Count your blessings while you go through this first portion of trail, it's wonderfully maintained, and you'll be wishing you were back on it soon. This section was about 4.75 miles, and it took us almost 3 hours with a long lunch break included.

After the junction to Tuck Lake, the "trail" begins gently, but quickly starts ascending quickly and at a steep grade. Roots and rocks are everywhere, however the trail is easy to follow. As you ascend, you begin to get views of Hyas Lake from above and Mt Daniel from across the valley. At the top of the hill, you enter an old growth forest and arrive at Tuck Lake. We stopped for a snack on the South shore next to the outlet unaware of how much more difficult it was going to get. From the junction to Tuck was about 1.75 miles, and took us almost 2 hours. 

From Tuck, we went around the South side of the lake and were led on what seemed like a goat trail, but there were cairns, a faint path, and GPS confirmation the whole way. This might have been more challenging because none of us were mentally prepared for how steep and rugged the trail was, and because we were carrying packs with 4 days of supplies. The path was fairly easy to follow; if you round a corner or a rock and can't find a reasonable way up/down/around, just look behind you, you probably missed a turn a few feet back. Once you reach the smoother white rocks, you're nearly there! One last little pitch of elevation, a short "traverse", and you're on the hill overlooking Robin Lakes (there are 2)! Seemingly plenty of camping up here, no toilet though. We picked the closest reasonable spot and called it a night. It took us another 2 hours to get up here from Tuck Lake, just under 1.5 miles. 

Sunset and sunrise were beautiful from Robin. I would have liked to spend more time up here with all the work I put in to get here, but I built a busy itinerary, and we would be leaving in the morning. Trico and Granite Mountain looked like fun objectives, but I didn't have time. 

Day 2: Robin Lake to Jade Lake 9.97 mi/ 2700+, 3410- elevation/ 8 hours

The second day started with descending the trail we cursed all day yesterday. Descending from Robin to Tuck took about an hour, my Garmin tracked it 0.3 miles shorter than yesterday; maybe I took a more direct route down, maybe it didn't pick up as much noise from me standing around catching my breath. From Tuck back to the junction was another hour, and my Garmin tracked it 0.4 miles shorter than yesterday. Once at the junction we took a right, and heading North towards Deception Pass, only about a half mile away. 

Deception Pass was a busy intersection with 4 trails converging. We continued North taking the Marmot Lake trail. It began in some meadows that were a welcome relief from yesterday. We snacked on lots of huckleberries throughout the first half of the trail. A couple ponds remained in the meadows. We stopped at an open creek crossing for lunch. The trail loses a surprising amount of elevation in the first half, about 600 feet. But what goes down must go up! We started gaining elevation again on the well graded trail, first in an old avalanche field overgrown with bushes and no shade, and then in old growth forest. You end up at a junction between Clarice and Marmot, we took the left up to Marmot Lake and were there within half a mile. This portion, from Deception Pass, took us about 3 hours including all our berry picking, lunch stop, and water breaks. Marmot Lake was much larger than I expected, lots of nice campsites around too!

We continued around Marmot Lake, lots of ups and downs, narrow rugged trail, until we reached the inlet to follow up to Jade Lake. The climb to Jade starts with the steepest section in rocks. Cairns guide your path up, but it's generally easiest to stay to the climbers left once you're in the gully. The grade lessens the higher up you get. We hiked through a little meadow, past a no name lake and then crested the hill to see the brilliant color of Jade Lake. Camping was a little limited up here given the amount of people present, but we eventually found one that was suitable and outside of any of the "restoration in progress" areas. It took us almost 2 hours to get around Marmot and ascend to Jade Lake, clocked in at 1.86 miles. 

We enjoyed the sunset and dinner, set up camp, and it started to get cold. I was hoping to get up Dip Top Gap from Jade, but it was too late today to do so. We considered changing our itinerary but decided against it. Another objective to come back and complete someday...

Day 3: Jade Lake to Peggy's Pond 13.40 miles/ 3410+, 3340- elevation, 9 hours

Today was a long day. We descended from Jade to Marmot (taking us about an hour), running into all the day-trippers up to Jade; I was jealous of their small packs. And then all the way back to Deception Pass, taking about 3.5 hours. The elevation that we lost on that portion of the trail yesterday was surprisingly easy to make back up. 

At Deception Pass, we continued South, but hung right to get on the PCT and get around the West side of Hyas Lake. The PCT was pretty well graded, had more fallen trees across the trail than I was expecting, and was more a slog than anything. It did have an interesting water crossing that could be challenging early season. Tons of water running through this part of the trail, but it resulted in tons of little waterfalls. Shortly after, the trail goes through a massive avalanche debris area, it looked like it could have been from this year, all the wood was super fresh; trail maintenance crews did an excellent job cleaning up this massive mess. The trail starts gaining elevation through switchbacks after the avalanche area until you reach Cathedral Pass. The PCT portion took us about 3.5 hours, 6.26 miles. 

Once at Cathedral Pass, we continued for 3 more switchbacks until we were on the back side of the pass and found the junction to Peggy's Pond. The sign only notes that stock is not allowed on the trail but does not identify it as the trail to Peggy's Pond. This trail is rocky, rough, with ups and downs. On the way there we took the right fork at the end (what I think is the new trail), and it is very steep at the end, it dumps you out right at the Southern shore. We took the old trail on the way back and I preferred it, but maybe I had fresher legs. We looked around a bit for a nice campsite and settled on one by the North end and settled in. The short trail from the PCT to Peggy's Pond is just over 0.5 miles. 

Day 4: Peggy's Pond to Mt Daniel to TH 10.39 miles/ 2800+, 4876-ft elevation/ 7.5 hours

Since we hadn't been able to do any of the side trips from our overnight locations the previous days, I was hoping to get up to Mt Daniel on our last day. One person in our group was feeling too tired to attempt the summit, and my dog couldn't be bothered to wake up; they stayed behind for a relaxed morning at Peggy's Pond, while the other two in the group got an early 6am start to Mt Daniel. Going up what seems like the main trail along Peggy's Pond to the end of the lake, there is a trail that takes off the to the left, marked by 2 white rocks, is what we took up to Daniel. The first part of the trail is steep, going through small trees, ascending quickly, but we were feeling good having ditched the heavy packs for the first time in the trip. It quickly becomes more sub-alpine in nature, winding up on all different kinds of rocks, some small scree, some small rocks, some slabby walking. The route is really well defined. We made it up the hill and began the ridge walk, keeping on tops of the ridge the entire route. I found a few rough campsites at the junction to Circle Lake. Eventually we were able to see the East Summit of Daniel. Snowfields were still present under the summit, a well-defined route was seen traversing and then climbing the snow fields. From my memory of the last time I climbed Daniel, I didn't remember there being so much snow to cross, I only remembered one snowfield; maybe my memory failed me, or maybe this year more snow stuck around. I was nervous about attempting the snowfields since it was so early in the day, the sun just came up so things would not have softened yet and we had no traction, just trail runners and hiking poles. We decided to descend the couple of steps to the snow and see how it felt, constantly evaluating our comfort level. The snow felt fairly good underfoot, and there were some old frozen footsteps dug into the path to help hold traction. We decided to go for it. The snowfield wasn't nearly as tough as what it looked like from afar. Once on it, I felt really good and slowly made my way to the pass below the East summit. No problems getting off the snow, no post-holing, the entire snowfield was feeling solid. We got off the snow at the pass and crossed over to the other side. At this point, it's a pretty easy to follow scramble traversing across the backside of all the Daniel peaks. The only interesting part of note is right at the beginning of this section, next to East Daniel, there is a short part of this traverse that looks like there are footsteps carved into the dirt across the steep hill, where you can really only walk in those steps. At the West summit there's a large wide hill that has a rock-built windbreak. A super short class 3 scramble up the final block led up to the proper summit; solid hand and foot holds, only one large step at the beginning of the scramble. We had great luck with weather up to this point, but smoke blew in this morning casting a heavy fog over everything around us. It made for beautiful sunrise colors but obscured all the valleys. Peaks were still able to poke through the smoke, an interesting way to view the region. We stopped for a snack and started making our way back down to camp the same way we came. The snow had started to soften up for the walk back, made steps a little easier to kick it. Continued down until we reached camp where we made breakfast and started packing up. We were able to make it up in about 3 hours, took a bit of a break to soak in the views at the summit, and then made it down in 1.5 hours. 

Back to being loaded up with heavy packs, we began the end of our trip. We took the old trail out of Peggy's Pond and preferred it over the way we came up yesterday. We quickly made our way to the junction with the PCT. Stayed on the PCT for a few minutes until we hit the junction with the Cathedral Pass trail. We took this trail all the way down to the TH. Turned into a slog, we were all ready to get some pizza and beer. I tracked this section around 5 miles, made it down in 2 hours, with a couple water breaks included. Minimal water on this trail, just Squaw Lake 2 miles in, and the Cle Elum River crossing right next to the trailhead. 

I wouldn't recommend bringing any dog on a trip like this. It definitely pushed my dog's limits; lots of miles and lots of rocks. The trails here are not kind to a dog's feet; I live in Eastern Washington, so my dog's feet are pretty tough from all the rocks out here which is the only reason I felt comfortable putting him through these trails. 

The trip was a great way to see so much in the area. If I had done more research into this area, I might have planned more time around each lake to see the surrounding sights, but this trip was thrown together in a day, so we didn't expect it to go perfectly.