Ingalls Lake

 

In the first week of October, I made a trip up to Ingalls Lake to see if the larches were turning color. The weather was terrible in Seattle and my plan was to post a lot of pictures of the warm sunshine and make derogatory comments about my friends trapped back in the miserable weather in Seattle.

But as I headed up to the pass, there is always a pass and it is always up, I could see the weather coming in from Puget Sound.

With a lot of effort, I managed to get up into the clouds before I got to the pass where it was a typical fall day for hiking with light snow and forty mile an hour winds.

But the larches were starting to turn

and the trail was very well marked.

I worked my way down into the basin, but the snow was two feet deep and I didn’t figure there was a lot of point in hiking another hour to the lake when visibility was about 10%.

In fact it seemed like heading back to the car before dusk was a very good idea since the weather seemed to be deteriorating. What’s worse than 10% visibility and forty mile an hour winds you ask?  All of those things in the dark.

I was only a couple of miles north of my car, but it was enough to get into the weather. Mean while, half way back to the car it was sunny all day and the fall colors were beautiful. It is  kind of hard to predict exactly where the edge of the rain shadow will be.