Glacier Lake | Drew Larrigan

Glacier Lake 2009 – Best hike in Washington

My old man has been hiking this trail for many years now. I believe he stumbled upon it in his “logging” days. I have done this hike once before in 2004 and have been wanting to go back for some time now. So I finally did with my Cousin Billy, and Sean. None of us have ever made this hike this late in the year, we typically head out early summer when the snow is melting or melted. This hike takes you up to 6500′ ft, and total mileage of upwards of 20+ miles.

We got a very late start on day one and didn’t hit the trail until 11 am. Typically the hike can take 6-8 hours, so we knew we were risking the chance of the sun setting before we reached camp. The trail takes you by an old mine, over a river, up to Parks Lake. Park’s lake is our main resting spot on our way up. You can tell which is park lake by the “lack” of snow by the lake. From Park’s Lake you have a few miles until Glacier lake. Once your near Glacier you will run in to a 700′ ft drop into the lakes exterior. This point offers amazing views of Spectacle Lake, and the surrounding mountains.

Once you reach Glacier you set up camp and get as much rest as possible, because the next day you have another full day of hiking/fishing ahead at Chikamin Lake. After a freezing night with temperatures around 20 degrees at night, we eat breakfast and head up the mountain. You climb up huge rocks, and “follow” the trail. We got off the trail and ran into the wrong lake. From here we really had no idea where to go, so we decide to rock climb a 200 ft’ wall, which we had no skill at doing. Frankly, I am glad none of us go hurt. Once we finally reached Chikamin Lake, we got right into fishing. The temperature couldn’t be more then 30 degrees, and with the wind blowing it felt colder. We all caught some fish and head down.

To keep this brief, that night temperature dropped down to 10 below. Surprisingly none of us got hypothermia, but we also didn’t sleep. 20 + miles later, and 3 days this hike was a success!