West Foss Fork Try #1

Click on any thumbnail below for larger images.
Scott's boss clued us into Alpine Lake Wilderness. There are 6 or 7 alpine lakes, all accessible from the West Fork Foss Lakes trail. This is quite a drive for us (over an hour and half) but closer than Mt. Rainier. As usual, we were underprepared for this journey lacking enough food for the strenuous hike. At least I brought a flashlight. Our goal was to reach Malachite lake but it got dark and we had to turn around. The last 1/2 mile we did in the dark with just a flashlight. NOT a good idea. To reach all the lakes, it would take multiple days. However, we did get to Trout Lake and get to see much pretty scenery. If the rain holds off, we'll try this one again, this time more prepared.

To reach Malachite Lake it is about 8 miles round trip and 3000' elevation gain. According to Scott's boss, we turned around a few hundred yards away from it. D'oh.

	This hike is just gorgeous. There are a couple of bridges that are literally made from fallen trees. We crossed a number of streams either on bridges like the one Scott is on, or jumping rocks.
Here I am crossing with my trusty tripod. I lugged this in so I could take some panorama shots and some long exposure water shots. I didn't get a chance to take many, but I did capture some. See below.
	There was a high mist for most of our hike up. At one point we did end up ABOVE the mist. There were a number of high waterfalls that we could see from the trail. Later on we got to get much closer to some of them.
The first lake we reached was Trout Lake. This is one of the smallest in the series of lakes. However, this picture is quite deceiving. This is merely where the lake pours out into a stream. Behind the outcrop is one large lake.
This is a panorama of where Trout Lake runs into the stream. Click on the image for a larger version, or you can view the huge original image. And I do mean huge. It's over 45 inches long.
	I was very pleased about the fact that I'd carried my tripod in with me. It's the first trip where I've done some of the carrying. Usually Scott is the mule. This is me being a wacknut while standing in front of Trout Lake.
Trout Lake is extremely clear and quite calm. This gives you some idea of size and calmness. I would have taken more pictures but I was pretty insistent that we hurry up so we'd have some hope of getting to Malachite Lake. At this point I of course had no idea that we wouldn't make it.
	Here Scott poses by the small end of the lake. Trout Lake is tear shaped, you come across the small end first. There is no trail around the lake that I know of, the area where you can sit by the lake is pretty limited. This is probably a good thing, if annoying when there are a lot of people around. Do you like the jacket? It's mine. Harumph.
Scott stands in front of the calm Trout Lake waters. No, he's not standing upside down, those trees are merely reflections.
	One of the reasons I wanted to cart my tripod in was that I wanted to take panoramas. The other reason is that I wanted to play with long exposure waterfall shots. This was the only waterfall that I could really play around with and it was hard to get access to it. Oh well, at least I got to play around a little bit. :) This is a 1 second exposure. The area is actually really quite shadowed but the long exposure allowed it to brighten up the picture a lot.
We never got much closer to this waterfall. However, it's astronomical in size. As we headed up towards Malachite Lake, we caught glimpses of this large waterfall, but never a really clear view.

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All pictures and graphics copyright 1999 by Anne Sullivan.
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