Hiked in on Saturday, July 17th for a two day (one night) trip with two friends up to Tank Lakes. We arrived at the trailhead around 9am to a few other cars. The last ranger report was from June 10th, so our trail conditions were very different than what was posted at the trailhead.
The first few miles are flat and the trail is in perfect condition. After a couple of miles the trail became more overgrown but totally passable, just some berry bushes on the sides. The huckleberries are ripe, super early this year, and the salmon berries are turning as well. The last trip report we found on AllTrails stated that the trail was extremely overgrown but this was not the case. Someone very recently had chopped a large section back which was really nice. Bugs are not bad at all at the beginning.
At the first river crossing, take the small social trail on the right to enter the bridge so you don't have to get your feet wet walking into the water. The river is running high and was all the way up to the log/foot bridge. From there go left after you get off the log, we tried to go right at first but there is a cairn on the left. After this you enter the first mini boulder field and this is when the elevation gain starts (about mile 5 or 6). Follow the cairns up the boulders and back onto a trail. The elevation gain stays consistent from here until Jade Lake. We crossed over and under a ton of blow downs, they were very annoying and many right in a row, but all were easily passable.
We reached Jade Lake (this is not the Jade Lake you think of, same name and very similar location) and stopped for lunch. There were some bugs here but not too bad until we got to the other side of the lake, heading towards Emerald Lake. There were several groups camping at Jade Lake and a group heading out from camping near the cabin. We took a 30 minute break to eat and filter water then headed around the lake and up to the cabin and Emerald Lake. The bugs are awful on this portion of the trail, we used both Sawyer spray and Deet back woods which helped a lot. The trail gets a little hard to follow on the steep section up from Emerald lake to the next boulder field. We had no problem with a Gaia GPS track but may have had trouble without it. This is a short but steep and slippery dirt section. Once we got to the boulder field it was easy to follow cairns to the next section leading up into the basin.
Once heading up to the basin, the trail gets harder to follow, not as many people keep going from the lower lakes. But there are cairns to follow. After passing a waterfall we did start to encounter snowfields to cross to get to the next patches of rocks. The snow was fine to cross in trail runners and there was lots of watermelon snow. More snow on the final push to Tank Lakes, again totally passable and it seemed firm.
We reached lower Tank Lake in just under 7 hours, including our long lunch break. We set up camp on a huge slab above the lake, and there was only one other couple camping on the other side of the lake. We had the place to ourselves! The lake is still half snow covered and there is a lot of snow in the lake basin. We did still take a quick dip, the water is freezing. The lake basin is stunning and we did a hike around the entire area. A lot of snow but easy to walk on and plenty of exposed rocks. Bugs were better here than at Jade Lake, but they were still around. With our thermacell we were able to manage sitting outside at camp without them bothering us too much, but without that they were extremely annoying. I went through almost an entire bug spray on my own this trip.
We had a great sunset and a beautiful morning before we broke camp and headed back down. Only took us 5 hours to get back to the car, including a lunch break.
Hope this helps someone since there were not any trip reports in 2021 for us. This was such an amazing overnight with a lot of elevation gain! My watch said closer to 4,300 feet gain and 25 miles RT.
More photos on my instagram: @skyestoury
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