Soda Peaks Lake — Saturday, Sep. 21, 2024

My bride and I started this 3-day backpacking trip from the Trapper Creek Trailhead by trail #192 then walked up Forestry Road #5401, crossed Trapper Creek, then took #133 up the ridge. The weather was in the 50s-70s, perfectly clear skies and not a single puff of wind. I can count the number of mosquitoes we saw on one hand, it was wonderful! There were several trees and large limbs down on the trail but all were safely passable. It looked like the last 400-600ft of elevation before reaching the lake had seen recent maintenance since the last rainstorm. No snow visible anywhere. The lake was crystal clear, full of crawdads, and had the occasional fish jumping. We found ripe and sweet blueberries in abundance on the south rim of the lake. We enjoyed circumnavigating the lake on our second day and ended the third with a great descent. It took us about 6 hours to hike in and 5 hours to hike out. We had the trail to ourselves both on the way in and the way out. There was one other backpacking overnighter on the other side of the lake and a few dayhikers showed up on the full day. Otherwise, it was dead calm, super quiet, incredibly peaceful, and absolutely gorgeous! All in all, it was certainly a strenuous hike with lots of switchbacks that required plenty of breaks. Trekking poles were a huge help. According to my hand drawn onX Backcountry route of the hike in, it was about 4¾ miles, 3,000ft of elevation gained, and 400ft of elevation loss.