The Tapto Lakes Tour, 7.31.15 - 8.6.15, Part 4 of 5
I woke up on day five at 5:30AM, looked out the tent door and the sun hadn’t hit the peaks yet. I missed it by minutes because I woke up again just before six and Challenger was all lit up. I hopped out of bed and threw some clothes on, grabbed my camera and got a few decent pics but I had missed the golden moment. Mike had also risen early and I’ve seen his shots. He got some incredible light on that morning. You know what they say. The early shutterbug gets the light(or something like that).
This would be our last full day in the basin before a two day descent back to the car so we wanted to take full advantage of our time. Since we had already explored the peaks and ridge east of the lakes we thought we would wander up through the west side of the basin to the summit of a red peak that might give us a better vantage point of the peaks and ridges to the west.
Beautiful glassy water on Lemon Lime Lake in the early morning from Hamburger Hill. The red peak was our objective this day.
Before we could even finish our coffee the weather began to turn. Clouds poured over the top of Easy Ridge and things looked dark and grey in the distance. Still, it didn’t look immediately threatening and we really had no desire to leave early anyway so we headed off for another exploratory mission to the west ridges.
First we wandered up a steep grassy slope covered in heather. It was fun to be off trail just picking your own route and like so many other hikes, the higher you went, the greater the views.
Greg and Jon with Challenger and Whatcom in the background. We just couldn’t get enough of these peaks.
Somewhere along the way Greg managed to break one of his hiking poles but Harry found him a great hiking stick which really helped. Once we accessed the ridge we had a lot of the views we had seen to the north from the unnamed peak. Then we followed the ridge west towards the summit of the red mountain. The drop off on the north side was substantial but the ridge run was comfortable enough and soon we hit the summit.
Greg on the ridge
Me on the ridge (courtesy of Mike Kent, used without permission). Directly behind me is the summit of Red Face Mountain with our unnamed peak to the right of Red Face. Far below on the north side is Reveille Lakes. We couldn’t see those from the unnamed peak but Mike saw them 2,000’ straight down the north face of Red Face from the summit the day before.
The weather actually improved as we hung out on our summit but we were still a bit concerned about how the clouds were building up. We discussed packing out early to get back into the trees before any storms hit but first of all we didn’t have a permit to camp anywhere that night other than Tapto Basin and secondly, we really didn’t want to leave at all. So we stayed. It was definitely the right call.
A different look at Tapto Lakes from the west. From left to right: Red Face Mountain, unnamed peak (ok, we named it Heidi Peak, but that’s a whole ‘nother story), Tapto Lakes, Luna Peak(off in the distance), Challenger and Whatcom.
Mox Peaks zoomed in. Evil but really cool looking peaks!
Zoom of Tapto Lakes. Our tent camp is in the meadow beyond the lone tree on Hamburger Hill above Lemon Lime Lake.
After climbing the red peak we wanted more so we followed the ridge in the other direction for a ways towards Red Face Mountain. This gave us a cool perspective of what we had just climbed.
Red Peak and Indian Mountain
After descending back to camp the weather was sunny and warm so for the third day in a row we swam. Since there were no bugs, it was easy to just sit in the heather on the hill above the lake and dry off before putting on fresh clothes. That was one of the greatest things about the routing plan. We had time to do exciting things like climb peaks and we had plenty of time to nothing but sit in the grass and relax. That evening was our last night in this amazing place so we finished off the whiskey, kicked back and just contemplated all we had seen and done.
Harry and Mike studying the route to the summit of Challenger. By the way, the new ultra-light backpacking chairs were the envy of the team and I think REI may have a couple of new chair sales coming up shortly.
Challenger and Whatcom reflected in Lemon Lime Lake
Every night we had wonderful evening light and I probably have a hundred of the same picture of Challenger and Whatcom but I just couldn’t get enough of them. Pictures of course just don’t do it justice. These peaks looked even bigger and closer in person. Truly inspirational. It was hard to call it a night because we knew we had to leave in the morning (insert heavy sigh). For the remainder of the trip, go to Part 5.