Cougar Lakes

We just returned from Canada, but this was summer so there was no time to rest. This summer was dedicated to getting out into the wild as many days as possible, so Dad and I had a trip planned for the morning following the return from Canada. It was a quick turn around, but that is what we had to do. Unfortunately, he was having trouble with his foot, so the original trip of hiking up Desolation Peak in the North Cascades was out of the question. Instead, we decided to head over to the Bumping Lake area to do some backpacking around there. After thinking about the snow line and the weather, we decided on heading up to Cougar Lakes. It was going to be a bit of a drive. Jacqueline and the kids left us around Puyallup and then it was up into the mountains from there. We went past Bumping Lake, down a sort of rough road, until we reached the Swamp Lake trailhead. We got packed up and headed up the trail where we were immediately given some great views of the Bumping River. It looked to be pretty full from snow melt and there was a cascading waterfall to check out from high above.

It wasn't too much longer that the trail led us right down into the river. I looked around for a bridge to cross, but nope, we were stuck crossing the river. This always makes me a bit uneasy because it means that my shoes are going to be wet for an extended period of time. Also, I did not want to fall in and I was wondering if the river was a bit too swift. At this point, though, there was no returning because this had been an entire day of driving to get to this point. We were going to cross. I went first using a stick to brace me that I found at the edge left I am sure by someone else doing the crossing. It turned out to be not so bad as it wasn't very slick. Dad made the crossing next and now the only fun thing we got to deal with for the rest of the trip was having wet shoes. He was smart and took his socks off for the crossing which helped his shoes dry out faster.

After that it was just the trudge through the alpine forest up the slope until we arrived at a large camping area next to Swamp Lake. We took the best camping spot as no one else was up there and I did not anticipate anyone joining us this evening. We set up the tent, ate some freeze dried food, played some cribbage, and read our books.
The next morning we slept in as long as we could which was not much. Then it was putting on the day packs to head up to Cougar Lakes. We debated moving camp, but thought it would be easy to spend the day hiking around up there and then return to camp in the evening. This turned out to be a wise decision. As soon as we started, we had to soak our shoes all over again to cross the creek coming out of Swamp Lake.

This was made worse by the fact that within minutes, the trail turned from dry and easy to snowy and challenging. We were able to follow it for a while using the cut trees as our guide until we got to a nice open meadow and then it was game over. We both went separate directions to try to find the trail. I was able to locate a trail and we followed that for a while. Unfortunately, after following that for some time, we realized that we were heading on the American Ridge trail and not the trail over to Cougar Lakes. At some point, my feet were freezing and it just felt like endless trudging through snow when we got to a point that both of us decided that going up was fruitless. We went back down the trail until we ran into the trail junction that we originally started following and sure enough it was taking us where we did not want to go.

It was obviously time to regroup and come up with a plan. It was still only 10 AM, so we were looking at only about 12 hours of daylight left. There was plenty of time, but how much time you can spend hiking in snow with wet feet was the question. We chose to go cross country and not worry about finding the trail to Cougar Lakes. This turned out to be a wise decision as the uphill hiking in the snow eventually put us on a plateau. I can tell from the map and the photos that we had to head toward a specific mountain. When we did, we were able to finally get a view of one of the two lakes peaking out through the trees. We were happy that we were able to locate these lakes.

Now we just had to get down to them. We hiked for a ways in the snow until finally deciding to just go down the steep slope. It took a bit of bushwhacking, but we were both happy to land on the trail again that led us down to Cougar Lakes. We ate some lunch by the lake which was a fairly ideal spot. Down by the lake, there was far less snow and mountains all around. We hung out at the smaller of the two lakes, but did walk over to check out the other one. I could see how this could be a great place to spend a few days. We used the trail to hike out of there, which we were able to follow a bit easier from this direction.

We hiked back down to camp and had to figure out what we were going to do with ourselves now that we had completed about all the trails that were offered to us in this area. I considered doing a separate hike going off trail to a lake or a peak, but off trail hiking does not hold a ton of appeal in the heavily wooded Pacific Northwest. We first had to decide whether to pack up camp tonight and head out or if we were going to stay another night. I voted on staying another night, even though it required a lot of hanging out around camp. We did run into the only other person we saw out there. He was an ex-military guy that did not seem to be afraid of the snow, yet ended up camping near us instead of at Cougar Lakes. After a while, we were able to come up with a plan for the next day that would involve hiking back to the car.

We got started once again as late as we could sleep in. This was going to be a fairly leisurely day. I hiked with Dad until we got to the Bumping River where he crossed to get back to his truck while I continued hike down the Bumping Lake trail. This trail took me through the forest to edge of the lake where I spent the next four miles or so hiking along the lake shore. I found the largest ant hill I ever saw in my entire life as this ant hill had entire logs in the middle of it. There were many large ant hills along this area, but this four peaked massive ant hill was by far the largest. I saw some more people and the views of the lake were fantastic.

The trail turned out to be a few miles shorter than what I was hoping for. Dad met me at the other end. We decided to set up camp at one of the many campground choices. We seemed to have this entire campground to ourselves. It was not by the lake, which was fine with me. I was able to find a way through the woods to the river where I sucked up the nerve to get in the chilly water for a dip. After that, it was time to hang out around camp. We were expecting a bit of weather and we did end up getting a bit of moisture on a couple of nights, but nowhere as bad as it could be.

The next morning, we were up early. The plan was for me to hike over the ridge and cross Goat Peak before descending back down to the other side, where Dad would meet me at the trailhead. The only issue was that this trail climbed 3700 feet in just a few miles to the top of the peak. I had my work cut out for me. It was definitely a steep hike with many switchbacks. I felt pretty good, though, and I felt like I was moving along just fine. The trail got fairly narrow after a while and it was rather scenic given that I could see down into the valley below. Eventually, though, I ran into the American Ridge trail. This trail was not snowy on this side of the valley, but it was rather unkempt.

I didn't have a tough time finding the trail, but it was very narrow in many spots. I didn't want to plunge down to the valley below, so I stayed aware. The trail swung around the peak to the other side, but never really relented in the endless climb to the top. The top of Goat Peak was a small, flattish rocky area where there was a register. It looked like about 2-3 groups had been up here so far this summer. It was a fantastic view and I was happy to be on a summit this summer. The trail continued to the other side of the peak, where I made sure to find the correct trail down at the fork where the trail split.

This trail seemed to be even steeper than the other side. It was better to go down it as far as it not being physically exhausting, but there was still that awareness of making sure I did not put my foot in the wrong place for much of the hike down. Where there weren't switchbacks, it was just a straight on descent with nothing to break the pursuit. This trail looked like it did not get much use which was not surprising for how steep it was, but it was fairly easy access coming right from the highway. It wasn't too long before I made it to the truck and Dad was able to get me back to my family where we start to begin the trip back home.