Colchuck Lake Fall Hike

 Yesterday, the weather forecast was for sunny weather up the Colchuck Lake area, so we drove up to do this beautiful 9 mile round trip hike with 2,300 ft of elevation gain. This hike starts at the end of  FSR 7601 (4 miles after leaving Icicle Road near Leavenworth).
The trail is mostly through the forest and soon enters the Alpine Lake Wilderness. The first 1.5 miles is fairly gentle trail.

 We saw some fall color along the way,

 along with many huge boulders.

 At 1.5 miles a log bridge crosses Mountaineer Creek. And the trail begins to steepen and travel over roots and rocks.












The trail follows along near Mountaineer Creek most of the way.

We saw many squirrels.

 The clouds stayed in the mountains throughout our hike.

 The trail flattens out for a bit before reaching the trail junction for Stuart Lake and Colchuck Lake at 2.5 miles from the trailhead. We went left towards Colchuck Lake.

 We soon crossed another log bridge over Mountaineer Creek.

 The trail again climbs upward.


















Our first view of Colchuck Lake, beautiful blue water, the peaks obscured in the clouds.


















The north end of Colchuck Lake,









The lake level was low and we could walk out to overlook the main part of the lake,

 the clouds continued to come in from the north, covering the peaks and turning the water gray.

 We found a nice rocky ledge to sit and eat our lunch and watch the clouds go by and change the lake color.

 Only briefly would the clouds part, giving small glimpses of Dragontail Peak.

 We spent two hours up at the lake, watching the clouds roll by and enjoying our surroundings, before heading back down the trail.

Nice fall colors as we drove down the forest road back to Leavenworth.