We drove out to the Paddy-Go-Easy Pass Trailhead near the end of the Cle Elum Valley Road to hike up to Sprite Lake in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, 6.6 miles round trip with 2,800 ft of overall gain. We had the hike mostly to ourselves, not seeing anyone until we were about a mile back to the trailhead.
The trail up to Paddy-Go-Easy Pass is steep through a forest with some open areas with views across the valley. The area is extremely dry this summer, but we did come across some small streams and muddy trail in the lower part of the hike.
As summer draws near to an end, we had some fall colors as these red huckleberry bushes.
There were several blowdowns on the trail, in some places the trail had beed rerouted, others we climbed over, and here we squeezed under.
Some views of nearby peaks across the valley as the trail climbed up and up.Mt Daniel and Cathedral Rock
Tucquala Lake down belowMore views of Mt Daniel further up the trail
Shortly before reaching Paddy-Go-Easy Pass there is a large rock outcropping with fabulous views, to the southwest we could see a distant Mt Rainier,zoom of Mt Rainier
and to the closer northwest Mt Daniel and Cathedral Rock.zoom of Mt Daniela and Cathedral Rock
The trail starts to level out closer to the Pass, with some large rocky peaks on either side of the trail.
Wide angle view from Paddy-Go-Easy Pass (6,100ft), The Cradle in the foreground:
From the pass, we descended about 100 ft down towards Sprite Lake 
This area is rocky with abundant ripe huckleberries.
First view of Sprite Lake
The Cradle reflecting in Sprite Lake
In the Talus field behind us, we saw a pika (zoom),
and a marmot (blurry zoom).
On our hike out, looking back at the talus field behind and above Sprite Lake.
Rocky trail on our way back to the pass,
we had a view of Glacier Peak, peeking behind other mountain.
Another zoom of Mt Rainier as we headed down from Paddy-Go-Easy Pass.some of the wildflowers, berries and fungi seen along the trail today:
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