TravelingbeebryantRN & Flicks_withNick

Certain experiences make your marriage stronger, but I’m not sure this hike made our marriage stronger. I can tell you that there was one other hike like this one in Idaho. I have this “great trait” where I do some partial research and we show up and are very unprepared. My husband on the other hand… is very prepared and does a lot of research. There are times where he trusts me and I’m not sure why… I told my husband this past week that I heard a lot about Colchuck Lake from people from work. I heard that it was one of the prettiest hikes in Washington and had some of the most blue (and cold) water. 

On Saturday, we decided to check it out. AllTrails is a great resource to check out maps on trails. People review trails daily to tell conditions, parking, and to also give suggestions. AllTrails offers a membership for x dollars, including a  7 day trial. This membership allows you to download maps of trails offline,  directions to the trail, and when you are hiking it keeps track of your distance and elevation. I think the only con we found with the AllTrails app, was if you are doing a non-loop trail, it’s difficult to see where you went and where you are going. We also didn’t like that didn’t give a distance of how far you were to the end of the trail. Check out the colchuck lake loop that we took: Colchuck Lake via Stuart Lake and Colchuck Lake Trail: 8335 Reviews, Map – Washington | AllTrails

The trail is located in Leavenworth. If you haven’t been to Leavenworth… go now. It is honestly heavenly. I will be talking about this town in a future blog. I really enjoyed it here. The trail is on top of a long windy dirt road. You have to drive really slow on these roads, as it’s very bumpy. You’ll come to two different parking lots that were full to the brim. People are parking on the sides of road. It took us probably 15 minutes to park. Plan to either get there early in the morning, later in the afternoon, to spend some time to find parking. 

The trail was approximately 9 miles long. When I say the trail was all up hill, it was all uphill. We were aware that it was going to be steep, but not this steep. It was also 90 degrees and we weren’t prepared for it to be this hot. It also was very rocky. It felt like we were rock climbing the whole way there. At three miles before the lake, I was convincing Nick not to quit. Luckily, we made it to the lake. 

The lake and the views were so worth it, but here are some tips for Colchuck lake. 

1. Bring enough water. If you think you have enough, you don’t. Also…I suggest buying a filter, so if you run out (like us) you can filter stream water. We actually ran into a nice lady who gave us some of her filtered water. Thank god for kind strangers!!

2. Show up early. On all-trails, the hike says that it takes approximately 5 hours long. For casual hikers, I’d say at least 6. You also want to add some time to swim at the top and also take some breaks throughout. We ended up starting midday and ended at dusk.

3. When you are asking people throughout the trail if you are close to the lake, take it with a grain of salt. I can’t even count how many people kept saying how great it was and you are so close. One guy told us how close we were and we were two miles of straight incline from it (what a liar). If it helps, 4.5 miles in is where the lake is located. We passed a few people that said, “I didn’t make it up and it’s too far”

Overall, tough hike but, definitely suggest hitting up colchuck lake. We both surprisingly say it too. If the kind stranger who gave us water is reading this, we made it to the top and we appreciate you ☺️ Spread the kindness!