Tonga Ridge, Mt. Sawyer, Ptarmigan Lake - September 1-3, 2012

This labor day weekend we decided to head in search of a new experience...camping on an island. I'm not sure how we got the idea in our heads, but we decided we really wanted to find a lake with an island that we could set up camp on and Ptarmigan Lake fit the bill.

With a slightly late start, we headed up to the Tonga Ridge trail head. The ridge walk was really nice with lots of great views. We followed it until taking a small slightly hard to find path down to Fisher Lake. Fisher Lake was nice, but we forded on to our destination. From Fisher it is a bit of a bushwhack over to Lower Ptarmagin. We managed to make it down to a pretty tree lined shore where we blew up the raft, loaded up our pack and floated over to the island.

Fisher Lake

Our campsite on the island

Lower Ptarmigan Lake

The island was nice and had a large campsite where we set up for the night. The next morning we spent a relaxing day on the lake. We took our raft around an explored a bit. We considered hiking up to the upper lake, but decided to just relax instead. We met one other person their camping near the shore, but it was pretty quiet.

Terrace Mountain

Sun beginning to set on Ptarmigan Lake

Reflection

Evening tent glow

Stars above Terrace Mountain

More stars

Rafting back to the mainland

 The next day we headed out and made a side trip to Mt. Sawyer for some lovely views of the Alpine Lakes wilderness.

 Daniels (left) and Hinman (right) from Mt Sawyer

Rainier peaking over with Chimney and Overcoat on the left

Looking towards Ptarmigan Lake with Terrace Mountain and Daniels

Summit Marker

Glacier Peak

Fernow Peak with Columbia, Foggy, and Sloan in the background

Daniels through Silver

Tonga Ridge Trail

Our approximate route