Indian Heaven Trail

At the rear of Cultus Creek Campground, there is the trailhead for the Indian Heaven Trail. A common loop is to follow this trail to the PCT, turn right for a ways (behind Bird Mountain) and return to the campground using the Cultus Creek Trail. This was my intent when I started. However, I visited Lemei Lake and Junction Lake before returning, making this a much longer trek. It was cloudy when I started, so I was not expecting any great views of any of the major mountains. But I was not expecting the rains that started in around Lemei Lake and increased throughout the hike.

The first section of the hike was a pretty stiff uphill trek. There was a view point that is normally pretty spectacular. The clouds today kept the view of Mt Adams hidden, but the panorama was still quite impressive.

After this is a short hike to Cultus Lake with a spur trail to Deep Lake. It is worth the time to stop visit Deep Lake for a few minutes.

Then I continued to the end of Cultus Lake where I connected with the Lemei Trail. Following this trail took me past some breath-taking lupine meadows and Lemei Lake. The trail continued across a bridge, up a short hill and on through some beautiful alpine meadows to Junction Lake.

At Junction Lake there were a number of campers hunkered down in the rain. I’m guessing they were PCT thru-hikers. I think Junction Lake would probably be a nice lake, but on this day, there was too much fog, and cloud, and rain, and mist.

From here, I turned north on the Pacific Crest Trail. Next view would be Bear Lake. At this point, there is a spur trail to Elk Lake which I wanted to see. So I headed downhill on a narrow trail, with wet brush on either side giving my pants a good soaking. It wasn’t too bad until I encountered waist-high bushes. Elk Lake could have been amazing, but I could only see a little ways across it because of the fog and rain. It was much larger than I thought it would be. There were several campsites available, so this might be a good place to come backpacking sometime.

I retraced my steps back to the PCT and continued north. Clear Lake was somewhere on the left, but in the drudgery of all the wetness, I missed taking any pictures of it. I finally made it to the intersection of the spur trail to Wood Lake on the left and Cultus Creek Trail on the right. By this time, the weather had totally wore me out and I was glad to get on this final leg of my adventure. Cultus Creek Trail had a lot of places that I am sure would be spectacular on a clear day. Up close, it was still quite beautiful. It was, however, very steep and took a while to descend. Finally, I arrived back at Cultus Creek Campground near the entrance.

I have to admit, the weather took a lot of enjoyment out of this hike. Since I was using one of those thin plastic emergency ponchos, I was able to keep warm, but was quite wet from the hips on down. I usually hike with inexpensive tennis shoes, so my feet were soaked as well. But, even though there were missing views and nasty weather, this hike was still worth the time. I will definitely do this again when the skies are clear