Hyas Lake, An Entry Point to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness

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This summer I took my son on our first overnight backpacking trip. He is nine years old so I searched for hikes that were shorter so that the focus could be on the camping and not the hiking. While I had originally booked a permit to camp by the ocean in Olympic National park, a day before our planned hike a weather pattern brought a ton of rain to the coast right on the historically driest day of the year in Western Washington. So for a last second adjustment we decided to switch to a hike further inland away from the rain. We chose Hyas Lake north of Roslyn off of I-90.

As many hikers know Hyas Lake is a wonderful jump off point for many other hikes. You can connect to the Pacific Crest Trail from here as well as many other Alpine Lakes. Tuck and Robin Lakes are on my list to do which are accessed from the Hyas Lake trail. While Hyas Lake is only two miles in and two miles out, with little elevation, Tuck and Robin Lakes are a bit more of a climb. Maybe we’ll do this one when my son is four or five years older assuming my knees allow it!

Getting to Hyas Lake is a bit of a drive, it’s a good hour north of I-90, well past Roslyn. If you look on a map the trailhead looks closer to the Highway 2 than I-90. About 10 minutes past Roslyn the road will turn from paved to gravel. It is a well taken care of gravel road that goes for about 10 miles, you likely don’t need a high clearance vehicle though there was one stream crossing. It was quite shallow at the time. I saw many small cars all the way there and more parked at the trailhead. We arrived on a Sunday and left Monday, this was useful as when we got there we saw a ton of cars at the trailhead. They were parked along the side of the road a good distance down from the actual parking area. However since we arrived on Sunday the early morning hikers that had already returned and left us some spots. Monday morning we were one of the only cars there.

I of course lugged the camara along to document all the birds and any other animals that we would see! Most backpackers would frown on carrying the extra weight but for us that is half the fun. It was mostly quiet along the trail, but near our camp site were some warblers and Swainson’s Thrush. We were visited in the morning by a Downy Woodpecker working a nearby snag. But most of the wildlife we saw was off the gravel road on our way out along the Cle Elum River that runs from Hyas Lake.

This hike is a great first time backpacking trip, there are multiple campsites near the lake and even a pit toilet in the woods. It is also a great day hike for kids if you’re willing to make the drive up, just be sure to get there early or late in the day for easy parking. On your way back home you’ll want to stop at Twin Pines Drive In for a burger and a shake! Always a great reward after a hike.

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Most of these shots were taken with the Sony a7 along with the Sony FE 200-600mm lens.
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