It
was a rare moist day in early
August. Kim and I headed south and east on Highway 410 to the trailhead
for Crystal Lakes. We met in North Seattle at 6:35 am. It was lightly
raining in Seattle. It rained for much of the way to Enumclaw. It was
more misty when we reached the 3530' trailhead in Mt. Rainier National
Park.
There were about half a dozen cars in the lot along the highway. We
arrived
at about 8:20 am. By 8:30 am we were packed and on our way. After quite
a few weeks of hot hikes the cool and damp morning felt good. We
brought umbrellas but never had to use them. Jackets were helpful at
first but came off a short way up the trail. The grade is a steady
climb all the way to the upper lake. Not overly steep but the trail
gains about 2250' in three miles. One group headed out a little ahead
of us and we did not see them again hiking up to the lake.
The trail has many switchbacks as it climbs up along Crystal Creek. The
creek can be heard near the bottom but gets a little farther away and
smaller higher up. With an early start and a fairly short hike we had
plenty of time to stop for photos. There are very few flowers along the
lower trail. Much better higher up. With some recent rain there were a
lot of mushrooms just breaking through the ground. Some were quite
large. The junction with the trail to Crystal Peak comes up at 1.3
miles. That left 1.6 miles to Upper Crystal Lake. A little beyond two
miles the forest thins and some meadows appear. They get bigger the
higher you go.
There were a lot of asters though they were almost all well past prime.
It seemed to be the last of the asters. There is still lupine in bloom.
The largest amount of a flower was "Rainiera stricta". It has lots of
yellow flowers that look a lot like silver crown. It was in most of the
meadows we saw. There were a few Indian paintbrush and higher up were
more patches. Not a great flowers show but still a lot of colors. The
other star of the day was western anemone. The flowers are long gone
but the floppy seed heads were more than abundant. One of the best
displays I have seen. All the flowers were coated with drops of rain.
The cloud layer was right above us. The lighting on the wet flowers was
great. Very different from a sunny day but in some ways even better
looking. All of this slowed us down to a crawl.
There is also a great variety of trees along the trail. Douglas fir and
western hemlock to mountain hemlocks, cedars, pines, and western yellow
cedar. Kim enjoyed noting all the different types of trees. The meadows
were best from the lower lake junction to the upper lake. We arrived at
Upper Crystal Lake at 11:30. We took almost three hours to hike three
miles. And we had many dozens of photos to show for it. Clouds were low
over the lake. We could barely see across at times and then it would
clear up a little before more clouds blew through. Very different from
the blue sky and hot weather on recent hikes. I even kept long pants
legs zipped on the entire day. It has been a long time since I last did
that.
We went part way around the lake and sat on some rocks to have lunch.
Now it was decision time. Hiking this day was never about views. That's
why we hiked in forest to a lake. Going beyond the lake to the ridge
top would not likely have any views. There are meadows. Would there be
enough wildflowers in bloom to make it worthwhile? We decided to find
out. Along the lake shore were hundreds of elephant heads. The pink
flowers were mostly finished but the shape remained. A few of the
flowers were still blooming. We had minimal visibility as we headed up.
We found that while many flowers were about done there were still
enough blooming to make going on well worthwhile. We saw more Indian
paintbrush along here. The floppy western anemone were really thick in
the meadows.
We were back to very slow forward progress. Though it always seemed
about to start raining it did not do so. We planned to go up a little
to see the wildflowers. Part way up the flower show dwindled but we
kept on going. We decided to go to the ridge top. In the upper basin
clouds covered then parted hiding then showing the sharp rock spires on
the ridge top. That was neat. We reached the saddle on the ridge top at
1:25 pm. The view over to Sourdough Gap went in and out of sight. At
times it was clear. After leaving the lake we had a few small donut
holes of blue sky overhead. They did not last long. Much like the
views. Those short bits of sunshine did seem to add about 20 degrees.
It went from chilly to hot in seconds. Then back to chilly.
We saw a few folks on the way up to the lake. We passed a few more
groups going each way on the trail to the ridge top. Perhaps it was the
weather but the trail was not very crowded all day on a summer weekend
in MRNP. So much the better. We enjoyed watching the clouds blow by. At
6375' some of the clouds were below us. A park ranger came up on the
Sourdough Gap side of the ridge. He replaced a sign and was taking down
the old metal one. We hung out until almost 2:00 pm when it was time to
head down. More photos on the return to the lake but far fewer than on
the hike up. We had a short stop at the lake before heading for the
trailhead at 2:58 pm.
There were more photo stops as the lighting was much different now.
Most of the raindrops were gone too. The last 2 miles down there were
very few stops. We reached the car at 4:58 pm. Two hours down sliced an
hour off our uphill time. Surprisingly, there were no slow downs on the
drive home. Leaving Mt Rainier National Park at 5:15 pm on a summer
Sunday and traffic was extremely light. Even in Seattle the freeway was
wide open through town. A perfect cap for a really nice hike. I will be
glad to get back to sunny summer hikes for the next month or so but for
this day a cool damp but not raining day was just what I needed. I'm
sure Kim felt the same way. This was only by fourth visit to Crystal
Lakes and only my second out and back ever. The past few years we did a
big loop that included the lakes. This was a perfect pick for a dark
and cloudy day.