Lake Ingalls Hike

This past weekend, Rick and I attempted to hike to Lake Ingalls in the Teanaway Alpine Lakes Wilderness (Washington state). We headed east to Cle Elum on Friday evening and spent the night with friends at their cabin. On Saturday morning, we took off with our friends to enjoy the hike.

The day could not have been more spectacular. The weather was warm and the smell of pine sap filled the air. Oddly, there is no June Gloom this year, and instead, the temperatures reached 88 degrees. I am glad I had my hat, 2 liters of water (which I finished just before the hike was over!), and plenty of sunscreen to protect my face from the piercing mountain sun. The trail is a popular one and we saw many other hikers coming and going.

The valley below

The trail is stunning with its forested valley, various ecosystems, and abundant wildflowers in bloom. How I kept wishing I had a naturalist with me to help identify all the flowers I was seeing!

wildflowers

The trail was a constant ascent (a 2500 ft. gain in altitude) and some in our group were having a rough time of it, so we only did half of the trail and turned back. I was just happy to be out in nature, enjoying the scenery, moving my body, breathing in the fresh air, and feeling so blessed to be alive and healthy!

Sigrid, Mike, Fran, and Rick

Hikers coming back from the lake told us they saw plenty of mountain goats and very little snow. In fact, it was very odd to look out over the mountain peaks and see only a few patches of snow way up high. Frightening, actually! What is happening to our climate?

Enjoy the photos interspersed though out this blog post (see below, too). The photos are unaltered in any way and speak to the beauty of Lake Ingalls. I hope to do this hike again in it entirety in the future.