Twin Sisters lakes, Tumac mtn

“Daisy the Wonder Dog and I left Lynnwood (Washington)at 8:00 a.m. Sunday, and made the nice drive to the trailhead at Deep Creek in three in a half hours. (William O. Douglas wilderness in the Gifford Pinchot N.F.) We headed up towards Twin Sisters Lakes at noon in remarkably warm and sunny weather. There were many hikers and horse packers leaving, typical for my Sunday arrivals. The woods were vibrant in full colors, yellow-green blueberry bushes forming a waist high carpet of color continuous in all directions. The 1 1/2 miles and 1000 vertical feet to the first twin sister went by very fast by my standards, and I then spent 2 1/2 hours swimming the dog and then drying her off in the sun, while the last of the area's weekend campers filed past and down the trail to their cars. Four o'clock found us completely alone, and we then went up the sand ridge trail, #1104, staying left at the trail No. 44 junction, then going left again at the Round Lake trail junction. This trail goes over to blankenship Meadows, the largest and flattest Meadows I've ever seen. We turned right (south) and headed up the meadow, seeing several bleached white elk vertebrae along the way. The trail through the Meadows is like almost every trail in this area: thrashed by horses. There are a whole series of trails, abandoned or closed, each new trail then being destroyed and replaced in its turn. The soft soil in this area makes every passage of a horse into a trail catastrophe. I decided to abandon the trails, and Daisy and I headed off cross-country through a whole series of pocket Meadows, small lakes and ponds, and short forest interludes, until we came to one of the blankenship Lakes, three lovely little ponds surrounded by Meadows, trees and granite outcroppings. We chose a campsite at the easternmost Lake, along its northern side. After camp set-up and dinner, it was dark, and a huge full moon rose, so daisy and I did some off trail, moonlight explorations while elk bugled and coyotes yipped and howled and owls hooted. It was a spooky-cool experience of the first order, made even more special by the complete solitude, and copious quantities of banana-flavored rum.

We awoke Monday at 8 after a blissful 10 hours sleep to see the clear skies and feel warming temperatures. A pleasant morning was spent letting daisy swim and frolick in the lake while I just absorbed the views and drank in the silence. Every bird that flew by a made the whoosh whooshing noise that you only hear when there is no other noise at all, not even the wind. Any sound daisy or I made echoed from the several hills nearby in a most remarkable manner. At 1:00 p.m. we took trail No. 1104A past the other two blankenship Lakes to the sand Hill trail then turned right (North) back towards the junction with trail No. 44. But that junction is more than a mile away, and would make us retrace the same distance back south on No. 44, to end up only one-half mile west of where we already were. So we headed West, off trail, and followed the contours of the land, through woods and meadows and past small ponds, to a large meadow shown on the map that heads upwards 300 vertical feet to the rim of Tumac mountain's eroded crater, where we struck trail No. 44 at about 5,800 ft. We then labored up the steep final portion of the trail, in ever expanding views, to the summit of Tumac Mountain, 6,340 ft. There I found my and Daisy's first-ever summit register, which I signed. I left a message of greeting to any Northwest hikers who might read it later. We stayed up there from 3 until 5:00 p.m., and were joined briefly by the only two people we saw for a two-day stretch, a couple of retired Forest Service employees from Packwood. They helped me locate various named lakes and peaks, etc. from my map. We saw: Mt Rainier, frying pan Lake, twin sisters Lakes, blankenship lakes and Meadows, Pear Mtn, Indian Creek Meadows, Fife Lake, dumbbell Lake, Cramer late, spiral Butte, Cramer Mountain, Mount Adams, various Goat rocks peaks such as old snowy mountain with its glaciers, and other points of interest too numerous to mention. There are a couple of awesome campsites (dry) on the very top of Tumac, one somewhat sheltered by low trees, that would've been spectacular spots in such tame whether as we enjoyed all three days. Maybe next time, since I can make Daisy haul the water! Hunger, rather than the impending sunset, made us leave at 5:00 p.m. I decided to hike the trails back, even though it added almost 2 mi. to the trip, and it was worth it since they traverse and re-traverse some excellent parkland and pocket Meadows bursting with color and teeming with wildlife, more heard than seen. After dinner we took another moonlight stroll, this time circumnavigating our blankenship lake on its sandy shore, made easy by the low water level in that particular lake. I said goodbye to the last of the rum and the last of a fantastic day.

Tuesday also dawned clear and bright, and I packed up camp much earlier than usual, since we still had much to see before heading out. At 11:00 a.m. we bushwhacked over to the Southern most blankenship lake, and went around to the south side for the best views of the lake, my favorite of the 3. There were some Super scenic and non horsey camps there, so we used 1 for lunch, and then headed further south to scout some ponds as shown there on the map. They are worthy of the detour! This whole area would be perfect for hammock camping, since you could find solitude around your own lake, far from any other campsites, even on a weekend. We wandered aimlessly for a while, secure in our eventually finding our way out with map and GPS. I decided to hike out off trail as much as possible, so we worked our way north-ish, passing the westernmost blankenship lake on its West side, then into the blankenship Meadows by traversing a series of mini Meadows that were going our way. We got into the huge open meadow more quickly than I had figured, so we crossed to the east side and scouted out a route for crossing the small hills there to access apple and pear Lakes without going around the hills to the south on the trails. There was a way trail apparently heading up to the obvious notch between the humpy hills, so I figured to try that route on a future trip. By now it was after 4:00 p.m., and we were still 3 mi. from the car, so we very sadly said our goodbyes to the area and headed back across the meadows to the Round Lake trail, and back to twin sisters lakes where we took another swim break for daisy. Rather than wait for her to dry I just straped her now-empty pack to mine, and we headed down the twin sisters trail to the car parked at Deep Creek. I wanted to attempt a land speed record for slugs, so we did the 1.5 mi. without stopping, taking just 30 minutes to get back, a 3 mi. per hour pace. It was the record, whoo hoo! We left the parking area at 7:00 p.m., and hit Chinook pass at 8:15, where I stopped to admire Mount Rainier in full moonlight and feed daisy her dinner. We walked around the area for a half-hour to settled Daisy's dinner, then bailed for home, arriving as originally scheduled at 11:00 p.m. I was going to dash off a quick trip report right then, but a wonderful lethargy overtook me after my hot shower, so I waited until today to write the report long-handed (7 pages!) at work, and then "typed" it up just now using my ViaVoice software, which explains the odd capitalizations and use of numerals, which I am too lazy to correct. The end!
(Pictures posted at nwhikers.net, trip reports section.)”