Pratt Lake Basin

After planning a Venturing Crew outing for the weekend, only one of the nine young men in our unit was able to attend.  Wrangling a friend from another unit and a second adult leader, the four of us headed out to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness to enjoy an early season 11-mile round-trip hike to Pratt Lake Basin.  We started at the Talapus Lake Trailhead and passed by Talapus and Olallie Lakes before reaching our campsite on Pratt Lake.  While the weather forecast threatened us with rain, we enjoyed a dry hike all the way in.  After setting up camp and enjoying a relaxing dinner, the rain started in earnest, and we dove into our tents around 8pm.  We woke up to sleet the next morning and hiked out of the basin with some snow showers.  As we descended elevation, the snow turned to rain, but that didn't stop a fair number of day-hikers making their way up the trail to some of the lakes.  

A photo album of the hike is available here.  A detailed trip report is available on the Washington Trails Association website here.

Glass-like conditions on Talapus Lake in the early evening.

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GPS Info

We collected all of the following data from our GPS unit during the adventure:

Maps

This Google Map is provided by GPS Visualizer

Elevation Profile

This profile is provided by GPS Visualizer

Coordinates and other details

Mileage:  Moving Time:  Average Moving Speed:  Trailhead Coordinates:

10.8 Miles 04:29:53 2.4 Miles/Hr. N47 24.062  W121 31.111

If you would like to use this info with your GPS unit, the full GPX file is here.
If you want to view this in Google Earth, you can download the KMZ files of the track and topographic overlay.