The Benson Lake Loop

The un-named peak above Benson Lake, looking down towards the trail (PCT).

The Climb Towards Seavey Pass Lakes

The Benson Lake Loop, August 2002

After an initial bout of climbing the trail entered some woods and actually leveled out in places which in turn allowed stabilization in breathing. The trail headed into an ever-narrowing canyon with moderate climbing, then again leveled somewhat. At the point when I seemed to be running out of canyon bottom, the trail took a shaded abrupt right turn to switchback up a steep canyon wall. After a bit of climbing, the trail left the thick trees and entered a sparse open fairly level forest with interesting views of sky and peaks off to the south-east. The trail then angled up to a gap where at the summit there was an excellent vantage-point to look back down the canyon. This point actually marked the end of the majority of that days hard climbing and it had only taken about an hour and a half to get there.

While the trail does a lot of fairly pleasant climbing, it does level off in many places. A typical section of the trail, looking up the north trail (PCT) in the canyon above Benson Lake, below the Seavey Pass lakes.