Amy and I hiked the twenty-mile High Divide / Seven Lakes Basin Loop this weekend. The trailhead is from Sol Duc and we even fit in a soak in the hot springs on Friday night before setting out on Saturday morning. I wish we could begin every hike like that! We ended up going clockwise to get our longer day in first since our permit was for Lunch Lake - so we hiked from about 6:00 to 3:00 on the clock face and went 14 miles and 4000+ elevation the first day. We also had wonderful views through varied terrain ranging from lush forest to alpine meadows of low blueberry bushes whose leaves are starting to turn red, rocky alpine bowls with little lakes, and, on the high divide ridgeline got to look across to the white glaciers on Mount Olympus. It was a really intense and beautiful day of hiking. We were really happy to finally get to our lovely camp spot at Lunch Lake around 5:00. We ate a feast of rosemary bread, goat cheese and vegetable risotto. Mmmmmm. Since it is late in the season, we got to see the stars come out, starting around 8:00 before tucking into the tent.
Day two was a one-mile hike out of Lunch Lake basin and then a steady descent for the next seven miles to the car. We got to enjoy the bright green Deer Lake, a couple waterfalls, and even spotted a bear down in a valley. This is a great hike! We've talked over how it could be done in 3 or 4 days with more day-trip exploring and bringing the kids.
