Summit Lake

When the weather is nice, I look forward all week to the weekend. And often I spend more than a few minutes most weekdays scheming about where to go. This week I thought that the Carbon River trail, leading to the Carbon Glacier on the north slope of Rainier would be the ticket, but I knew the wildflowers should be in bloom now (a couple weeks later than normal, due to the cool weather in early summer). This trail was going to be mostly in old growth forest - cool, but not many flowers. After mulling both Bearhead Mountain and Summit Lake, which are both in the same relative area, I took Eekhoff's advice, and took the fam & the aunties to Summit Lake.

It didn't disappoint.

We hiked up around 1,200 feet in elevation over roughly 3 miles to the lake. Towards the top, there were acres of open meadows with wildflowers - especially bear grass - at full bloom.
No, Abee isn't quite walking. . .yet. Although she is confident enough to stand up and hang out for a while without anyone standing nearby.
She even had the paparazzi chasing her.
This was one of the more relaxing days on the trail we've had in quite some time. We set up 'camp' next to the lake, cooked a nice hot lunch for everyone, and even had blueberry cheesecake for dessert!
It was a toasty day for sure, and as crazy as Matty is, even she needed a break in the shade once in a while.Summit Lake in the foreground, with Bearhead Mtn in the back, which was one of the other options for the day. But on a hot day like this, hiking up to a lake sounded better than to a summit.
Speaking of summits. . .
Melis doing her best Lewis & Clark pose.
The lake must be spring fed, because there were no inlets and no outlets.
There were insects all over the place. This was one that we actually enjoyed having around.
It's a little tough to see here, but Abigail is crashed in her backpack. Surprisingly, she actually sleeps pretty well back there.
Back to the beargrass-filled meadows, with Rainier in the background.

Girl's best friend.
She got a little sleepy again, and slept a good chunk of the way home.
This post wouldn't be complete without mentioning the gnarly road we had to take to get there. It was reminiscent of some of my firefighting days, taking old desert roads that hadn't been traveled on in years (or so it seemed). We pitty the poor hikers who will came back after us to find their car at the trailhead with a flat tire. Bummer for them. The pic below doesn't do it near justice, but the rocks, washouts, ruts & gullies were big, and I'm hoping like crazy the scratches on the side of our rig will buff out, but that's what we have this thing for. No one hurled (although Kristin was looking a little green), and Abee even seemed to enjoy all the bumps! That's my girl!