My daughter Evie (age 9) and I went on our annual backpacking trip this past weekend. This year we repeated the trip we took last year, spending one night each at Olallie Lake, Kaleetan Lake and Island Lake in Washington's Alpine Lakes Wilderness. This is a great moderate route suitable for children with previous backpacking experience and good fitness, with several options to shorten each day's trip if needed or to skip a day by going straight from Olallie to Island. As we hiked it, my GPS read 3 miles/1500' from trailhead to Olallie, 8.7 mi/2500' from Olallie to Kaleetan, 8.3/2500' from Kaleetan to Island, and 6/500' (2000' descent) from Island to the trailhead. The map says each of these should be a bit shorter. YMMV.
Trail beta:
- All trails are in fantastic shape, even the seldom used trail to Kaleetan Lake. All water crossings were easy. I did fall in Kaleetan Lake but that was on me. Turns out wet logs are slippery.
- Blueberries are just starting to get ripe. This and next week are probably going to be the peak.
- There are still many beautiful flowers, although I think they're past their peak.
- Tons of traffic on the Talapus/Olallie trail, and a little bit on the Pratt Lake trail, but we saw only one person on the trails to Island and Kaleetan. There seemed to be only two other parties camped at Olallie on Friday and nobody at Kaleetan (Saturday) or Island (Sunday). We also saw a WTA backcountry response team heading back home after a week of trail work - THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!
- On the night we spent at Olallie Lake, I was kept up for hours by several barred owls making extremely loud, high pitched calls all night long. Even earplugs couldn't block out the sound. I have never heard anything like it, and I've camped in that same exact spot 5 times. At least there were no rodents around.
- There were almost no mosquitos (a few at Island Lake) but tons of biting black flies everywhere! What a pain. We also saw several yellowjackets, which made us nervous about swatting at the flies.
- On the trail from Kaleetan to Island, we saw 7 toads!
- 88 degree weather coincided with our arrival at Island Lake. I took the opportunity to swim out to the island, which my watch measured at around 150m.
- I saw one small fish feeding at Kaleetan Lake and saw one swimming around at Island, but otherwise no signs of fish activity.
- Despite sunny weather, long days out, and Evie's fair complexion, we didn't need sunscreen. The entire route is well shaded except brief sections of the Pratt Lake Basin and Island Lake trail.
Other things:
Evie has become a beast of a hiker! We moved at a steady 1.8-2.2 mph clip, stopping only for lunch, for 6-8.5 mi and 1500-2500' of elevation per day. I think I successfully converted her to Mountain House - no more heavy loaves of bread! She carries all of her own equipment, clothing, water and snacks, plus the stove, mugs, fuel, and tent stakes - 13.6 lbs of pack weight including 1.5L water. My pack was 29.6 lbs. fully loaded (kept it under 30!) and 15.6 lbs upon return.
Big thank-you to Gossamer Gear who gave us a tent, "The Two", as a consolation prize for rejecting our application to be official trail ambassadors. It's really a great tent - very light but with two doors and two vestibules and a clever outward-sloping design that maximizes headroom for a relatively small footprint. I'm also a huge fan of their Kumo packs which I've now bought twice (two different versions).
Kaleetan Lake is an unheralded gem that more people need to visit. It's a beautiful, large, warm lake with a great mountain view, a giant flat campsite, easy water access, blueberries, flowers, and fun logs to explore, and there's never anyone there. At 9-ish miles from the trailhead, it's not super close, but it should still be within range for many backpackers. Perhaps I should keep it a secret, but I'd rather share.
