All photographs, courtesy of Marc Sterling

Nice Friggin Lake

Wonder Mountain wilderness, neatly tucked into a remote section South of the Olympic National Park, is probably only really visited by locals. It’s a bit hard to find via the logging roads that wind around, there is no trailhead as there are no trails that lead into it. But as it was, I was with a local who had been there before and wanted to return for a backpack trip.

Weather in the Olympic peninsula is fluky at best, but the trip started with some very nice weather… maybe a bit on the warm and humid side.

Steep Trails

Basically the terrain in and around Wonder Mountain is either steep up or steep down depending on where you’re going and there doesn’t seem to be much in between. So after following a short abandoned log road where we parked the car, it was steep up.

Alpine Gems

Up through mixed growth, dense forest. Very pretty, but not much in the way of the long view. Route finding is reserved to following drainages up toward the peak of Wonder Mountain trying to avoid getting stuck in the steepening ravines. Though not long in distance, it is slow going, picking your way up through the forest.

... and another one

Up near the peak, our route called for a traverse and then a steep slope down toward a lake shown on the map – our first camp. Does it really ever dry out in the Olympics. I think not. With a hundred plus inches of rain a year and rain at all times of the year, areas like a North slope that rarely sees the sun just don’t dry out. And we found that out trying to traverse a grassy slope with no fall protection, and a full pack. Snotty slick would be a word for it. Fortunately, we managed to carefully navigate this treacherous little section. But that still left a steep descent down to the lake. And that proved nearly as treacherous. We each suffered a couple of slips and slides on wet wood trying to make it down. Slowly and with a few bruises we managed to get down to the lake and camp. Since the area looked pretty much unvisited we figured that we should name things as we saw fit. So it was and will always be On-Your-Ass Pass leading into Nice-Friggin-Lake.

Clouds blowing through

Pretty stuff. An alpine lake tucked into a narrow valley with some views to the East. Your typical Olympic gem. Our plan was to camp here one night, head over to another lake to the north for two nights and be back at this lake on our way out.

Misty Lake

The next day was again a nice one and the route to the next lake was again somewhat tricky. The terrain here is incredibly rough, but that made it incredibly scenic too.

The other lakes in this area were much the same, beautiful alpine gems. Turquoise water surrounded by lush greenery. We had some low clouds pass through and a little rain but that just added to the beauty.

Heading out was much the same as heading in, but at least we knew what we were up against. Looking back years later, the area afforded some stunning scenery, but it was a bear to get to any and all of these little lakes. This is probably one of the reasons we didn’t see any people or much sign that any had been there recently. Would I go back… I’m thinking about it.

Tags: Alpine Lakes, Backpacking, Mountains, Remote Destinations