Schaefer Lake — Friday, Jun. 4, 2004

Central Cascades > Stevens Pass - East

There are plenty of bugs at the trailhead, but fortunately they were not as dense once we started moving. The trail has several interesting challenges. The first is the crossing of the Chiwawa River. There is a logjam located very near the trail, with one darn skinny log that extends far enough to get to more substantial logs. Of our party of four, only one had the guts to walk the log. The rest of us went ""a chaval"" (think horse). This is a good way to prevent any more children, if ya know what I mean... pesky branch segments and fast flowing river added to the excitement. A bit further along the trail, when it's still in the flat region, are two muddy swamps to cross. Maybe they are dry later in the year? We had to walk around one. Still further is a pretty brushy section. There are quite a few logs down -- probably 20. One pesky section quite a ways up has a jackstraw section of ~8 logs. The rest aren't too hard to navigate. Snow starts near the first lake, but isn't any impediment to travel. While in the neighborhood, we climbed up peak 6764 just N of the lake. We had tried to tackle Bandit, but the weather didn't cooperate.