West Fork of the Foss River / Trout Lake

I got a new book a couple of weeks ago, Hiking Washington's Alpine Lakes Wilderness by Jeff Smoot.  Given that this week was absolutely gorgeous (mid-70's, not a cloud in the sky), we decided to go for a bit of a hike, and we picked the West Fork of the Foss River / Trout Lake hike.  It's low enough in elevation that it was snow free, but it had a bit of elevation change (400 ft) to make it a good day.  I decided to strap on my pack and make it a training hike as well. 

Life was good for the first half mile, the trail was in good condition and the terrain wasn't too bad.  When we go to the river crossing, we were detoured due to the foot bridge being washed away, so we made our river crossing on a log.  Then things got dicey. 

The second part of the hike involved quite a few downed trees, climbing over them, squeezing under them or detouring around them.  It seemed that all the trees we climbed over were full of sap, going under consisted of crawling in the mud (with a 30 lb pack), and detours around them took us through strands of devil's club and blackberries.  Having just worn shorts, I've still got the wounds on my legs.

But the trip was worth it.