It was supposed to be just another PNW walk in the rain. The forecast had pegged the chance of showers at close to 70% so I fully expected to slog along the trail, climb slippery rocks, and have zero views. And while it wasn't a perfect, bluebird day it was far from a slog.

From the trailhead there were spots of blue scattered amongst the fluffy white clouds. If the clouds had been thicker I might call those blues, "sucker holes," but this was honest-to-goodness blue sky with some clouds. And the clouds tended to hang around the jagged peaks to give the whole area an otherworldly feel.

We found patches of snow that were great for Treen and a relief from the heat of summer (even if it wasn't actually hot on this day). While collecting some living snow a pika popped out of the rocks. Bonus science!

The first lake we encountered is a monster. A beautiful, beautiful monster. It's huge and it takes a long time to hike past. There's a short stretch through the forest before we arrived at the smaller, cuter lake. It's like a precious jewel tucked in the wilderness. There were two tents at the lake and it made me wish I was able to stay the night.

Instead, I climbed the peak that stands above the lake. We didn't quite get into the clouds, but they surrounded us and were moving in quickly. Before they could overtake us we beat a hasty retreat back down to the lake and out the trail. The only stop we made was to fill up on fresh water and chase another pika. We couldn't quite see it, but it kept squeaking at us and eventually popped out of the rocks right at our feet.

I'm sure the trail held so much more to see on the way back, but the light was fading and soon it was too dark to see much beyond the cone of light projected from our lamps. Still, so much in such a short distance and all accessible from a paved trailhead. It's out there. Go find it.