We entered at Cooper Lake (the Pete Lake Trailhead). Our original plan was to circle around from Cooper Lake to Waptus Lake, down to Spectacle Lake, and then hike out at Cooper. However, the region around Spectacle was closed because of a forest fire, so we had to adapt our plan. We spent two nights at Waptus, which allowed us to do a day hike up to Spade Lake. We spent our third night at Pete Lake before hiking out.
All in all, Waptus lake was quite nice. It was moderately crowded (for the backcountry), but we had no problem finding an empty site. The fire turned out to be a blessing, as the dayhike to Spade Lake turned out to be quite nice. Pete Lake on the last night was an annoyance … there was like a billion kids (since it was only ~4.5 miles from the trailhead). There was a nice site near the trail to Lake Escondido, and I kinda wish we would have stayed there instead.
Anyway … let's get to the details.
We headed out Thursday morning down the trail to Pete Lake. We decided to take the "hard" route to Waptus Pass via the Palallie Ridge. It was not that hard … but it was also not that scenic either. Most of the time was spent in the trees with a few okay views here and there. The picture below was about as good as it got (yawn).
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| View from Polallie Ridge 1/125s @ f/11, ISO 100, 29mm From Central Alpine Lakes |
After about 10.5 miles, we made it to Waptus Lake. We camped at the first site, before the stream crossing. The best site is along the trail after crossing the Waptus River, but some other people beat us to it. We did a bit of swimming and relaxed on the "beach". Here is a view from our site:
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| Waptus Lake Campsite Day 1 1/40s @ f/9, ISO 200, 18mm From Central Alpine Lakes |
We had a fire that night. I took some photos and tried out my camera's handling of the high ISO settings. Here is one at ISO 6400. I had to do some post processing to reduce the noise, but it turned out okay.
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| Fire at Waptus Lake 1/6s @ f/3.5, ISO 6400, 1/6s From Central Alpine Lakes |
The next day we moved our camp to a uneventful site on the other side of Waptus Lake near the trail up to Spade Lake. Here is a view from the "good" campsite at the tip of Waptus Lake looking towards Bears Breast and Summit Chief Mountains.
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| Bears Breast and Summit Chief Mountains over Waptus Lake 1/80s @ f/9, ISO 100, 25mm From Central Alpine Lakes |
After hiking ~2 miles to our new campsite, we then climbed ~8.5 miles (round trip) up to Spade Lake. The book described the trail as steep. It was. It was also hot.
Spade Lake has a great blue color. We had a nice lunch on a rock near the water.
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| Lunch at Spade Lake 1/30s @ f/11, ISO 100, 18mm From Central Alpine Lakes |
The next day we hiked ~12.5 miles to Pete Lake via the Waptus Burn Trail. The trail had a good amount of elevation (~2500 ft) with lots of good views along the way.
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| 24 Switchbacks 1/30s @ f/10, ISO 100, 27mm From Central Alpine Lakes |
After a long hike, we got in to Pete Lake. It was Saturday, and quite crowded with large groups w/ kids. Luckily we found a decent site. I was not particularly impressed with the lake, and found the crowds rather annoying. I would definitely recommend it as an okay spot for introducing backpacking to a young-in … but that's about it. Here is a photo looking over Pete Lake at Sunset.
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| Sunset at Pete Lake 1/13s @ f/9, ISO 400, 29mm From Central Alpine Lakes |
The next morning we had a leisurely breakfast, and then hammered out the 4.5mi to the car in less than 1.5hrs. Afterwards, we had lunch at "The Brick" in Roslyn. It was a decent pub with plenty of TV's playing football. They had breakfast burritos for $2 (the bacon ones were good) and chili dogs for $1 (bad). I would go back.
