For day two of our Autumn exploration weekend, we decided to wake up early for a hike and take a 2 hour drive east of Seattle to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness on the east slopes of the Cascades. What made the journey particularly exciting was driving the last 30 miles on a fire road full of potholes. If only we had my LandRover!

Since fall foliage is in full turn right now, the reds, yellows and greens were quite the treat on the drive up. However, the hike itself was a little bare on the fall colors. Don't get me wrong, the alpine wilderness was beautiful, but it was pure evergreen pine trees. Hike stats:

Trail name - Ingalls Lake
Length - 8.6 miles roundtrip (5.6 miles roundtrip to the summit only)
Hiking time - 5 hours
Elevation gain - 2,400 feet
Temperature - freezing in the shade*
Mental note, when deciding what gear to leave in the car for a climb steeper than you thought, don't skimp on the water.

The hike was brisk, refreshing and a lot of fun becuase it went through such different types of terrain. We walked through pine forests, barren rock slope sections and quite a bit of snow at the top of the summit. We started too late though, so had only enough time to get to the summit before heading back down the trail back to the car. Lucky us, this first half was the hard part! What we didn't get to see is 2 miles past the summit is supposedly a pretty little lake. Next time, I guess.