Mallard Design Company

Alpine Thrashings
A favorite trail runs by here.
Joe Lake, Alpine Lakes Wilderness, WA, USA

A bit of a bushwhack, 14 miles, travels radically changing scenery.
by Tom Mallard
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Green Trails Map #207 Snoqualmie Pass

After I see a hidden peak a few times, I want to go check it out...so, this little adventure by the map doesn't look too bad. I was trying to see Mt. Thompson, an imposing crag, by going up Gold Creek past Alaska Lake to Joe Lake.
Well, the hike in seemed OK. Then, there is this great south facing avalanche slope after the turnoff to Alaska Lake. It's huge, maybe a mile wide, maybe a little more. The whole thing is slide alder, stunted spruce and devil's club.
The "trail" winds through it, bushwacking experience pays off here...
But enough people used to go there that the trail went through; I found a fabulous campsite above a stream, and it didn't rain.
The next day, the way up to Joe Lake was a semi-climb, root grabber; again, well traveled enough to be obvious.
The top of a waterfall, the trees hide it, but the rest is a cliff, so step a little closer....
As you get close to the lake, the trees get big, and Joe was sparkling in the afternoon sun...this is good.
After scrambling around a while, it was time to go; must try this again.

A few years pass... and I use the Alaska Lake trail and notice the trail to Joe Lake is now closed off.
If no one has bushwacked back there for a while, it's a lost trail. Glad I had the chance to use it, and understand why it was there before it vanished into the alder once again...witnessing history disappear.
The trail was established by miners early this century. Now, in three years, it's about gone. There were blazes on trees many decades old, and some improvements to the trail here and there.
People now just hike to Alaska Lake, and maybe to Joe Lake by descending from the PCT, but the reason for the Gold Creek trail is now overgrown history.
This is beginning to sound like a good reason to snowshoe back there before the alder pokes through, we just got another foot of snow...