Steven’s Lake - 7/25/2008

We recently went on our first family backpacking trip. We decided to go to Stevens lake. We left on a Friday afternoon after getting off work a bit early.


We rolled into the lake after about a two hour hike. Wasn’t too bad and everyone did great. Even our newest edition did great even though he is only 4 months old :).

The next morning we decided to break camp and scramble up to Stevens Peak. You can see the slopes to the ridge in the background below.

We ditched our packs at the inlet of the lower lake and prepared a day pack for the scramble to the peak. The slopes up to the north ridge were very brushy and we found no easy trail. After a bit though it opened up into bear grass slopes.

Trying to find a way through the brush Finally out on open slopes

The ridge was not to bad with great views the whole way to the summit with lots of rocky outcrops. Upper and lower Stevens lakes could be seen as could Lone Lake on the drainage on the other side of the ridge.

You can see the our route to summit clearly here
The ridge up has some awesome rock

One of Several rocky outcrops to negotiate Top of the rocks right before the final slope going up This is the final approach to the peak
Negotiating the final part of the ridge Looking back down the ridge line

It took us probably 2.5 hours from the time we broke camp to reach the summit. It was well worth it the views were amazing.

What a great day!

Lone Lake Upper and Lower Stevens Lake Looking back the ridge line
Summit Meadow

After spending about a half an hour at the summit we made our way back down to the lake.


Descending the last steps to the summit Descending

We took a quick dip in the lake after reaching it. I couldn’t believe the number of people at the lakes on this Saturday afternoon. Glad we came out on Friday. We ate lunch and then headed back out to the trail head.

I was surprised and proud of how well everyone did on this hike considering the scramble to the peak was fairly difficult. It was a great introduction to backpacking for the rest of my family.

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