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The trip was stunning.  The trek into and out of the high country was through big old growth forests replete with waterfalls and meadows.  We had time to make a side trip to Bogachiel Peak the first day before finding a site to camp at Lunch Lake.

On our second day, we spent the majority of the time exploring Seven Lakes Basin.  There are seven major lakes and a plethora of wonderful smaller lakes.  The weather was perfect and we skinny dipped and ate blueberries and huckleberries by the handful.  In the late afternoon we set up camp along the High Divide Trail above Heart Lake and sought out a high point to cook dinner while taking in the sunset with a view of Mount Olympus and the Blue Glacier.

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The sunset we witnessed that evening was spectacular.  After the sun rimmed down behind Bogachiel Peak, the sky seemed to catch fire with brilliant flames of yellow and red at the epicenter and hot orange coals at the margins.  It was a dream evening for a photographer to be out in the high country.

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My Cousin Don (Beavon) decided he would attempt a monster final day and climb the highest peak in the Bailey Range, Mt. Christie (the high point to the left) before our journey out.  This added many miles and thousands of feet of elevation change to an already long day.  He expected it would take him 7 hours to get to the summit and back to camp.  I was tempted to join him, but my focus was on this area’s photographic possibilities.  To attempt such a trip would have required me to go too fast and too light.

I set my alarm for 4:oo am, and woke Don.  He rolled out of his bivy sac, inhaled a quart of water,  threw another quart, a windbreaker, and his camera into his fanny pack and started jogging down the trail by 4:05 in shorts.   I slept till 5:15 and then got up to catch the dawn shot of his objective shown at left.

That morning Don Duncan and I explored the High Divide area.  This was when I created the panoramic image of Mount Olympus below.  For this image I used my Nikon D700 to composite 14 separate images.  The result is over 70 megapixels and infinitely enlargeable.

At 11:00 am we returned to camp to wait for cousin Don.  Knowing Don’s tenacity, we both knew he would push for the summit no matter the adversity and we were both mildly skeptical that he could pull this “side trip” off in 7 hours.  To our pleasant surprise, he rolled back into camp about 5 minutes early with a big grin and summit photos on his camera.  Between our backpack trip out, the ferry crossing, and car drive we didn’t get back to Don’s house until very late.  He then slept just a few hours before working a 12 hour shift at the hospital the next day.  Amazing.

This was a very fun trip into a spectacular bit of high country in the Olympics.  I would not hesitate to return another year.

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