Sheep Lake, Sourdough Gap and Crystal Lake Overlook

We drove up to Chinook Pass to get in a hike with great views today. We hiked north on the PCT to the Crystal Lakes Trail junction and hiked part way down to Upper Crystal Lake. This was about 7 miles round trip with 1,200 ft of gain.

From Chinook Pass, the PCT heading north follows above hwy 410 on the way to Sheep Lake. View of the highway and Naches Peak.
There was intermittent icy snow on the trail.





It is 1.8 miles with 400 ft of gain to Sheep Lake. Wide angle view of Sheep Lake with 400 ft of gain. Sourdough Gap is in the background.






From Sheep Lake it is 1.2 miles with 700 ft of gain up to Sourdough Gap, we used our micro spikes on this icy trail today.










From Sourdough Gap looking Southeast: Mt Adams in the distance and Sheep Lake below.

 From Sourdough Gap looking north along the PCT and the junction with the Crystal Lakes Trail, which enters into Mt Rainier National Park. We continued hiking about 1/2 - 3/4 of a mile. Other hikers had broken trail here over the weekend, but the wind had blown snow over about 100 ft of this trail, that we broke new trail on.

 View of Mt Rainier, Crystal Peak and Upper Crystal Lake












a bit further down the trail, wide angle photo to show the cirque Upper Crystal Lake sits in

 We continued a short ways along the trail for a view of Three Way Peak, which has a hole in the rock up near the top on the right side.

 Returning back along the Crystal Lakes Trail

 We found a nice rock cropping to sit, enjoy the views and take a lunch break.

 Trail heading back to the PCT and Sourdough Gap











Pano of Sheep Lake with Chinook Peak to the west

was surprised to see some pasqueflower seed heads along the trail today.