Chain, Chain, Chain Lakes Loop, 9.8.15
Funny sometimes how life just flies by. Upon moving to Washington from Colorado in January of 1991 I was sort of scooped up by some friends who I really barely knew. I may have met them once in Colorado before each of us moved up here. We used to hang with them playing board games, doing a little hiking and talking music and photography. However, Bridgit and I hadn’t seen Denis and Carol since moving to Lake Stevens back in 2002. We re-connected last week through the hiking blog and decided it was high time to get together again so plans were made.
We met them at a campground below Mount Baker and after setting up camp we drove up the mountain to the upper parking area at Austin Pass. We had recently had our first substantial rains in a long time and the forecast teetered on rain but we actually made it through the trip with no rain to speak of. Since we were planning to hike the following day we just puttered about above the parking lot. There are many places to go from Austin Pass and we had no agenda so we just wandered a ways up one of the ridge trails to a knob. The clouds were pretty low so the normal jaw dropping views of Mount Baker and Mount Shuksan were obscured. No matter, our primary purpose was just to spend time catching up with our friends. The clouds did make everything a bit more mystical and it was a very pleasant afternoon.
Strolling the knob above Austin Pass
That evening we had a nice dinner at our campsite and a sort of soggy wood fire and we were all off to bed by 9PM. We thought the forecast called for mostly cloudy but improving weather so we were in no special hurry to hit the trail the following morning. After a leisurely breakfast and coffee we took both vehicles up the road. I have spent a lot of time at Mount Baker since it is the closest of the five volcanoes to our house, but I had somehow never been on the Chain Lakes Loop hike. It’s very popular since it is only about six total miles and it is so close to the parking areas. To save about a thousand feet of climbing, we parked one vehicle at the lower overflow parking lot and then we all drove up another mile or so to the upper lot at Austin Pass.
Table Mountain. The upper parking lot is behind the knob in the left side of the picture. After hiking behind Table Mountain, the hike returns through the pass in the upper center of the picture.
The trail follows the eastern flank of Table Mountain to a saddle. Greg and I had taken this route before and gone left at the saddle towards Coleman Pinnacle and Ptarmigan Ridge. To do the Chain Lakes Loop, we took a right at the saddle. The trail worked around the south side of Table Mountain and then dropped down to a small but pretty little lake called Mazama Lake.
Carol, Denis and Jake the dog on the trail. Notice how much the fall colors have already changed!
Approaching Mazama Lake
Once past Mazama Lake, we made a short gentle climb over a knob. There the trail bisected two more lakes. On our left was a very beautiful lake called Hayes Lake and on the right was an equally beautiful but starker Iceberg Lake.
Hayes Lake
Iceberg Lake. If you took away the clouds, Mount Baker would be towering in the background of this shot.
After Iceberg we climbed about six hundred feet to a pass called Herman Saddle that basically divides the views of the north and south sides of Table Mountain. From this vantage point, on a clear day you have Mount Baker off one side and Mount Shuksan off the other. On this day that hardly seemed to matter. We were all just enjoying hiking together and there was no lack of things to see closer in. We stopped here for some lunch before descending back towards the lower parking lot.
Table Mountain from below Herman saddle
Typical trail coming down from Herman Saddle. Great fall color.
After descending back into the basin we hiked along a lovely little creek draining the lake until the trail cut off to our parking lot.
Creek below Table Mountain
Thanks Denis and Carol! We had a really nice time.