Woods Creek and Lakes
From the trail, looking back towards Upper Paradise Valley and Kid Peak.
Upper Paradise Valley
Woods Creek and Lakes, SEKI, Spring 2005Day 2: From the Upper Paradise Valley camp, most people can make it to Rae Lakes, and for most, that is the plan. The Rae Lakes Loop is a popular hike (I did it). By the same token it is a long but do-able hike to Woods Lakes basin from this camp. We had other ideas, which I will not bore you with, Suffice to say we were exploring cross-country routes out of the Woods Creek Canyon, and only went as far as Castle Domes Meadow that day.
Looking south up a glacier carved un-named canyon and creek that neighbors Gardinier Basin. There is a good sized lake up there and several small ones.
Hopefully for anyone reading this and doing this hike, they could break camp and hit the trail by immediately crossing the spanking new bridge. I hope they indeed built it as planned. We, on the other hand had to cross on an old log of the previous "bridge", which had been abused by the previous winter. At the far end was an unpleasant log jam which required careful footwork with heavy packs.
After the "bridge" is the sharpest climb of the day for anybody heading east. It is a 1500 foot climb over the next three miles, with 600 feet of it over the first mile. A stiff but manageable climb. Fortunately, it is fairly wooded and therefore shaded and it has its share of good views. The canyon walls are quite impressive in this section.
