Rachel Lake

 Headed up by Kachess Lake in Central Washington off of I-90 to hike up to Rachel Lake in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. This is an 8 mile round trip hike with 1,600 ft of elevation gain, the majority of the gain in the last 1-1/2 miles
There were many streams to cross on the trail, in the morning the logs and rocks were icy and slick.

 We had some nice views of Box Canyon Creek along the lower section of the trail.

 Where the trail went through open areas, we had nice views of Hibox Mountain.

 Some of the stream crossings had nice cascades

 The last 1.25 miles on the way up to Rachel Lake are steep. There are many rocks/boulders and roots to step over.

 another view of Hibox Mountain

 It was icy and partially frozen at the waterfalls.

This was one of the easier stream areas to cross today.

 This section of the trail was covered in a slick sheet of ice, fortunately we were able to hike off trail around it.

 This was one of the easier sections to hike, We found a couple of the icy covered areas of the trail were long enough to use our microspikes.

 Rachel Lake













we hiked in to this area of Rachel Lake to take a lunch break












Wide angle view of Rachel Lake from our lunch spot

another view of Rachel Lake

 frozen pond near Rachel Lake

View near Rachel Lake looking down into the valley we hiked up to the lake

 another view of Hibox Mountain

The trail was still icy on the hike back down,

some of the fungi we saw along the lower section of the trail: