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“I spent 4 days (8/13-8/16) at Crater Lakes in Okanogan National Forest. (Trail 416). The weather was great, the bugs weren't bad, I saw no other people the whole time, it was a beautiful destination, and the fishing was superb. I got a chance to view the Perseid Meteor Showers also. ^^^^There were a few deer, some cougar tracks, and an eagle (golden perhaps?) that was fishing at the lower lake. I stayed at the upper lake, which can be reached by a sketchy trail around the southwest shore of the lower lake. ^^^^These are both high lakes, typical of the Sawtooth Range, at about 7000 ft. The lakes still thaw out relatively early, regardless of the high elevation, due to the drier climate of these eastern mountains. This was evidenced by the lack of any snow or mud, (except for a few patches on the north face of a high peak overlooking the lake) and also the well-fed fish.^^^^I caught one in the lower lake at 14″, though most of the other fish there were smaller. The upper lake had larger fish averaging 11-12″ with a couple around 13″. The fish in the upper lake were west-slope cutts (I believe). The fish in the lower lake seemed to have thicker spotting and lacked red bellies, but they still had the larger underlying spots of west-slopes. Something like a coastal-west-slope hybrid? ^^^^I also took a day hike to the top of nearby peak 8174. I snapped some good pictures which I should be able to post in the near future. All in all it was a great trip.^^^^Andrew”
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“Nice trip report. I went into those lakes many years ago. It was early in the year and we were heading to a lake from Slate Peak. We started hiking but soon found ourselves postholing through deep snow and the weather was horrible with snow falling. We bailed out and went down to Twisp and picked up a FS map of the area. We picked out the Craters as our alternate destination because we figured we could get there without a topo. If we had known they were over 7000 feet we probably would have figured they were frozen and not bothered. We went in and the lakes were wide open. They seem to get warm air coming directly up from eastern WA and open up very early. The weather was perfect not a cloud in the sky. I couldn't believe it, snowing on Slate Peak, cloudless on the Chelan Crest. It sounds like the fishing hasn't changed much in the last 20 or 25 years, though I don't think we caught anything nearly as large as 14″ so maybe its gotten a bit better.”
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