We drove up to the Anderson Watson Lakes Trailhead on the east side of Lake Baker to hike up to Watson Lakes and Anderson Butte, overall 6.5 miles with 1,900 ft of gain. The trail starts out in a lovely forest with some boardwalk sections.
The trail goes drops down through a lovely meadow, where we found wildflowers scattered throughout. By the creek, there were lots of monkey flowers and bog orchids in bloom.
As the trail went up though the meadow, we turned around for a view of Mt Baker to the north.
We enjoyed seeing wildflowers in bloom this late in the season.
There were still large patches of lupine in bloom,
along with heather,
arnica and sitka valerian.
We opted not to visit Anderson Lakes, but took the trail as it dropped down towards Watson Lakes, entering the Noisy Diobsud Wilderness.
View of Watson Lakes and Bacon Peak from the trail.
Another view further down the trail.
There were a few downed trees on the trail.
View from the lakeshore at the lower Watson Lake.
view along the shore of the lower Watson Lake as we hiked around the north shore
view at the upper Watson Lake
We crossed the outlet on these logs.
One of the coves on the side of Watson Lake
We found a secluded spot on the side of the upper Watson Lake to take a lunch break, so serene and beautiful! View to the east
View to the west from our lunch spot.
We hiked back around the lakes, up and over the ridge, back through the meadows to the branch trail to Anderson Butte.
The side trail to Anderson Butte is 1.5 miles round trip with about 700 ft gain mostly in the forest (there is 600 ft of gain in 1/5 miles). When we came out of the forest on the east side of the butte, this was our view!
The trail continues towards the north at a more gentle rise, Mt Shuksan comes into view.
zoom of Mt Shuksan
At the end of the trail, we could see both Mt Baker and Mt Shuksan to the north.
View to the southwest, with a distant Glacier Peak.
Enjoying the views to the east as we return down the trail.
some of the wildflowers and berries we saw along the trail today:
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