Lake Ethel, Lake Donald & Lake Julius and Loch Eileen — Thursday, Jul. 4, 2019

2night/3 day backpack. First the road to the trail-head has some pretty big rocks and is rough so just go slow. Our plan was to hike up to Ethel, camp there and the next day hike the ridge and surrounding lakes, which we did. Took us roughly 4 hours to get up to Ethel with full packs. The clear cut area was beautiful with wildflowers blooming everywhere. It was a tad windy in this area but we still were able to be comfortable in shorts and tanks. Most of the camp spots at Ethel are in the trees and so we selected one closest to the water. Let me just say that the mosquito's are NON STOP everywhere, at all the lakes and on the ridge! After we set up camp we spent most of our time out on a rock by the water since there was wind and it kept the mosquito's down. The lake is mostly tree surrounded but pretty! That night I awoke to howling winds in the middle of the night which stopped by morning. ( This area gets a lot of wind because it's just over the pass). We set off the next day to explore Julius, Loch Eileen and Donald. We made a stop on top of the ridge, adding about a 1 mile RT to our day, so my friend could find a geo cache hidden on an over look that looks down onto Loch Eileen & Ethel as well as Glacier peak in the distance. (this is the only time we ever saw Glacier Peak). Returning to the ridge we descended into the where the other lakes are found. Julius is a very large lake, mostly treed. We didn't spend more than a minute here to take a photo because the Mosquito's were eating us alive. Pressing onto Loch Eileen, the bugs eased up a bit. Along the trail are pretty pink and purple wildflowers. Loch Eileen is a lot more Alpine, less treed and prettier in my opinion than the other two previous lakes. After lunch we decided to try our luck finding Donald and we were lucky to run into some other hikers coming down who told us the trail to Donald was down near the toilet. The trail to Donald is very steep, has some rock exposure and has Cairns most of the way making it easier to navigate. Here you can see mountains and lakes in the distance making for a nice hike to offset all the sweat coming out! Donald is stunning! Not as treed as the other lakes, deeply entrenched with rocks and a stunning blue color. Not much of a shoreline to get to it. We stayed for a bit then hiked back down as it was time for us to turn around. We ended up with 9.6 miles from Ethel to Donald & back including our 1 mile off course so just be prepared. The description mileage between the lakes I doubt is accurate. Also note worthy is there is just as much ascending as there is descending. You go up from Ethel but go down to Julius ect which makes for uphill on the return. Once again I was awoken to howling wind around midnight that night but this time it rained till just before dawn as well. Next day we packed up and left Ethel around 9:30 am. Took about 3 hours to get down. Over the 3 days we only saw roughly 10 other people camping between all the lakes. Very quiet. On our way down we did see a few groups coming up for day hikes. Overall a very quiet area.  There are multiple downed trees on all of the trails (except Donald) but they are fairly easy to navigate over.