Pinnacle Lake, Bathtub Lakes — Friday, Aug. 20, 2004

North Cascades > Mountain Loop Highway

Friend forgot to call me for a trip over to see her, so I at the last minute planned this hike. Mr. DayhikeMike decided to take me along on a hike he'd been wanting to do for a while. Well, we started out going up the trail to Pinnacle Lake... and then saw the trail veer off to bear lake and decided it might be a fun side trip. So we went over there and snapped a few pictures of bear lake. Then backtracked back to our trail and continued on. The hike to Pinnacle lake wasn't bad, steady elevation gain though. Some parts were pretty steep with the roots... but nothing I hadn't experienced before. Just after our first view of Pinnacle lake... I noticed a few rocks we had to climb down to the lake. I thought, no problem, after all, I gotta encounter more of these later! Ha! So I make my first and pretty much only stupid mistake, and slip on a rock, and cut my leg. It wasn't a bad scratch... but boy did it sting! After encountering some brush and having that brush against it... I decided a bandaid was in order... so out came the antibiotic ointment and a big bandaid! Course, I was fine after that. The lake was nice, we had a little bit of a snack there. And after my snack I went in search of a nice spot to take a bathroom break. No problem there, I found a sign pointing off to a pit toilet of sorts... and followed a little trail to the toilet. Not a bad spot, it was surrounded by huckleberries... just in case you wanted to snack. haha. Well, after that I came back down and we said goodbye to some folks and their dog at the lake before heading on. We went around the left side of the lake and followed a faint trail that eventually took us to the infamous ""iodine gulch"" It wasn't so tough of a climb up. We chatted about different hiking names for rocks... scree... talus... and that other ""C"" one I forget the name of. He informed me that we were indeed climbing ""talus"" at that time. I took extra care though, I didn't want another scratch on my leg. After finnally getting to the top. We noticed MaryLou's infamous ""iodine gulch"" sign. We chatted for a bit on the story behind that before moving on in search of these ""bathtub lakes"". Probably wasn't the best time of year to be seeing them. A LOT of them were dried up. Which sort of dissapointed us a bit. We did take a few shots of the ones we did see... although it was difficult with all the fog moving in. One of the ""bathtubs"", one of the few of the larger lakes actually, was so covered in fog... that at first we weren't exactly sure how large it actually was! I looked off into the distance and joked that it must go on forever. Well... it turns out it was only a medium sized lake. We found two more around the same size... maybe a little bigger. It was very dissapointing though... we figured they must look nicer in sunlight. Shortly after finding the last of the lakes... Rain began to fall.. no... pour down. It was just as I had feared. The whole way up I had the thought in my mind of how terrible it would be to climb down in the rain. Well, I was right. It was terrible. Miserable actually. Mostly because my coat is not even close to waterproof and I was soaked almost instantly. Soon, there wasn't a part of me that wasn't wet. And I was COLD... my hands soon began to freeze on me... and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to grip my trekking poles, which I needed badly, on the way down. Well, the beginning of the decent was the worst. It'd be bad in dry conditions, in bright sunlight... but in the fog and rain... it was HELL. The grass was some of the worst of it... We had that and I guess what you'd call scree for the first part down. I didn't fall even once. But Mr. DayhikeMike who so kindly decided to go ahead and test everything for me fell numerous times. The first fall became a face-plant. Now that one was actually kind-of funny. He slipped, fell side ways, and ended up face first in the dirt... he got plenty in his mouth too. I kept telling him to be careful the rest of the way down. But in his search to find safe places for me to come down, he fell many more times. In the mud, on rocks that weren't stable, on grass... etc. Each time, i'd cringe and ask if he was ok... and if anything was broken. That was one of my biggest worries... that he'd break something or somehow seriously injure himself... and i'd have to call some mountain rescue people in to get us... in the pouring rain. That would have been lovely. We could have had tea up there on the mountain side while waiting... haha. Anyway... after finnally making it down to the lake. I somewhat resembled a ""drowned rat"". Dayhike Mike decided it wasn't the best for me to be wearing my super dripping wet jacket any longer and gave me his. His wasn't warm... in any sense... but it was waterproof. It kept me from getting wetter. Soon after, he also gave me an extra pair of socks he had stashed in there to put on my hands as gloves. They worked nicely. They were wonderful. lol. A nice relief from cold wet things. The rest of the hike down was pretty simple... altho we did pass a lady and her two boys setting up a tent in the pouring rain. Must've been on the miserable side for them too. I would've hated setting up a camp in that rain! Well, the rest of the way down we traded off songs from our various choirs just to occupy the time and keep us going... and keep our minds off the cold. Or at least my mind anyway... Mike was fine. lol. Down at the car we hopped in and turned the heat up full blast. It was a wonderful relief. I was able to embrace the excruciating pain and warm up my poor frozen hands! That was nice... well at least it was when they were finnally warm... lol. Well, that's about it for our trip. If you go, bring lots of raingear, extra dry clothes... and items to keep you warm. Unless the forcast is for like... 90 degree weather or something. Don't go if the forcast is rain... unless you're crazy and like risking your life like we did. Have fun.