Sodalite Lake
It all begins with an idea.
This one starts from Lady of the Lake trail head Day 1 Lady of the Lake, Cliff, and set up base camp at Splinter than hit Moccasin and Peanut. Day 2 Pneumonia, Recruitment, Paddle, Production, Stepping Stone, No Bones, Looking Glass, Rough, Sky top and Lone Elk. Day 3 Stash, Weasel, Surprise, Sodalite, Boulder, Little Molar and camp at Aquarius. Day 4 Sedge, Dollar, Curl, Broadwater than back to the truck.
Day 1: We dropped one vehicle off at the beaten path trail head. jumped in the truck and drove to lady of the lake trail head. about 3.5 miles and 1k vertical to our basecamp at Splinter Lake. Getting to Lady of the Lake was super easy, 1.5 miles and 152ft vertical there is a very nice trail and not a lot of elevation changes. Once you pass Lady of the Lake you will be meet with a split in the trail, continue on the lower one. About 3.2 miles from the trailhead or where zimmer and star creek meet there is a nice open field. National Geophrapic topo map says there is not trail up to the sky top drainage, which is the drainage you would be interested in going up, but there is a trail. From here it does get pretty steep but hearing the water roaring down through the canyon will distract you on how tired you are. On our trip we meet a lost tourist trying to find Aero lakes, We told him the bad news and informed him to turn around. The trail than goes through some willows which gets tricky to find. You have to cross the creek somewhere and you will see the trail on the other side. Eventually you’ll be greeted with Cliff Lake. From there you will have to bushwhack. The trip up to Splinter was a tough one for me, but one of my brothers was able to find a good route which is following the drainage up. It does get very steep. Splinter does not have very good camping spots but there definitely is one on the north side of the lake. Most good looking camp spots are in a flash flood area. You never know what could happen. It was a good thing we took precaution because that night was a massive hailstorm and lighting that would rumble the ground.
Day 2: This day our dog Ellie found a porcupine twice! Hopefully she finally learned her lesson. Following the drainage up made it easy to get to Pneumonia and this was one beautiful lake. You where able to see the Cathedral Spirals from here. Once you get to Pneumonia the other lakes where pretty easy. Recruitment, Paddle, and Production are all within an eighth of a mile. Now you can go in between Paddle and Recruitment even though when you are hiking it does not look very promising. Just make sure you go back to Recruitment right away or you’ll end up on a 100ft cliff overlooking Production (makes it hard to fish). Again the hiking is pretty easy once on top.
