After contemplating and discussing several other possible locations for what will hopefully be the annual father-son hike, we decided on Scout Lake. Certainly it's not far, either to drive or hike, but it possesses something that you often don't find at mountain lakes 8 miles in from the trail head - privacy! As Scout Lake has no advertised nor marked trail, it's quite likely that even on a summer Saturday night with beautiful weather, you will have the whole lake to yourself! This, added to the fact that we knew plenty of time could be spent fishing, makes it a winner!



After a hearty breakfast in Maple Valley, Ben, Dad, I, and Erik the chow piled into the car and soon made it to the trail. We arrived at the lake just after noon, as expected, and discovered that there was a truly great camp spot just a short distance from Fish Point. There was plenty of room for two tents, some nice sitting rocks and even grass, all backed by a large rockslide. The nicest beach on the lake, also known as Fish Beach, was just a stone's throw away.



While Dad got started with the fishing, Ben and I decided to hike up to the top of the ridge on Humpback Mountain. The true summit was another mile or so farther north, but we didn't venture that far. Aside from a few short crosses of very open forest, most of the 800 foot climb to the top from Scout Lake was on talus slopes composed of very large rocks. At the top, we found an awesome view of the I90 corridor out towards and even beyond Snoqualmie Pass. Not far from where we reached the top of the ridge stood an imposing rock outcropping with steep long drop-off's on three sides.



We hiked a bit farther north on the ridge top to obtain better views and attempt several different methods of communication. The first shot is our friend the steep sided scary rock formation. The second two show Scout Lake, though we were unable to reach a point at which we could actually see the camp site. The other lake you see far below is Annette Lake, on the opposite side of the ridge, backed by Silver Mountain on the left. We first tried getting in touch with our Dad by using my hiking whistle and yelling. We were able to make contact, barely, but not have any sort of meaningful discussion. I have since obtained a much stronger whistle, supposedly the best you can get. Next, Ben whipped out his cell phone and made a couple calls. Jeannie and Alec weren't at home, so he had to leave a message. We did get a hold of Glady's, however, and had a nice conversation. The connection was great up on the ridge top, but disappeared down at the lake.



The hike back down to Scout Lake was much the same as going up, all rockslides, and somewhat steep ones at that! We took a slightly different route, and discovered several interesting features along the way, including a spectacular patch of moss and bear grass at the edge of rocks. Just a bit farther we found a very nice meadow of heather and bear grass.



We finally got back down to the lake, despite Erik trying to scare us off by barking long in advance of our arrival. Dad had alrady caught a few fish, and caught a couple more just as we were heading around the lake! You can see where Ben and I were on top of the ridge, by looking for three trees with nothing on either side of them, in the center of the picture. Once we got back to camp, Erik could finally relax and conked out behind the tents.



Another great feature of Scout Lake is the view towards the western sky, easily seen just a short walk from our camp site. The vivid colors were amazing this particular night, especially seen from the inlet side of the lake.



Checking the fishing lines one last time before dark, we managed to catch two more fish! While technically none were mine this trip, I did reel one in. The sky remained clear for a bit and I was able to catch some star photos, and a tent shot just for fun.



Sunday morning we woke to find the place covered in clouds, though fortunately not wet. As we did a bit more fishing, the clouds suddenly rolled right over the lake, completely obscuring our view of the opposite shore, or even 20 feet ahead of us! Did you ever see that movie 'The Fog'? A salamander camped out underwater on a rock just off Fish Point, and we eventually gave up trying to catch any fish that day. Still, our total exceeded the record set earlier this year by myself, for seven fish! As before, they ended up on the barbeque at home.

Another great hike at Scout Lake, we could hardly have asked for a better time!