Fall Backpacking at Marmot and Jade Lake

9/25-9/26/21

This was a solo trip with Zax and my first mistake was trusting my google maps. My google maps was erroring out all week going to prior searched addresses, most of which I would catch because I knew the general route. However, I made the mistake of google searching "Jade Lake" to see the general vicinity prior. When I entered the actual trailhead coordinates, somewhere along the drive, it changed back to "Jade Lake" bringing me 4hr from the trailhead so be careful to not make the same mistake as me. I ended up driving to Leavenworth and sleeping in the Jeep and waking up and driving the 2hr to the trailhead. I hiked up to Marmot Lake and found a campsite, had lunch and relaxed for ~2hr. I then hiked up to Jade Lake. The trail was a little hard to find at times. There is a more obvious trail to the left of the cairns that bring you up a pretty intense rock scramble for ~1/2mile. It was easier to see on the way down and I wish I would have known on the way up. Once we got up there, Jade lake was amazingly blue. There was another lake on the way up towards Jade Lake, called "No Name Lake" on my Gaia. There was no one here and it was beautiful so Zax and I relaxed, or I relaxed and he chased dragonflies :) We hung out here about an hour and then headed back to our campsite for dinner and sleep. I had the best sleep of the backpacking season here. We were in the tent at 7:30-8:00 and slept until almost that time the next morning. We packed up and hiked down. My Gaia read 9.49mi and 3,950' ascent. It was beautiful! Check out the pictures