Completion of My Alpine Lakes Wilderness Mission

To begin with, I want to acknowledge that this is my first post to the blog in a long time. Several years ago, I made the decision that my time would be better spent writing trip reports on other forums such as wta.org or nwhikers.net. It is my goal to add posts to this blog for some of my favorite Alpine Lakes Wilderness trips, while they are still somewhat fresh in my memory. However, I don't have a particular timeline in mind for that effort.

If you're interested, you can see a record of my lake-bagging and hikes on the Hike-O-Meter page on this site. The hike list also includes links to a photo album for each hike. Some, but not all, of the photo albums also have captions that mostly tell the story of the hike. Fair warning - the albums for multi-day backpacking trips often have many hundreds of photos, so you may want to grab a large bowl of popcorn before diving in.

I regret to announce — this is The End

With a nod to J.R.R. Tolkien, I am at the end of my adventure. However, "regret" is certainly the wrong word in this case - I am actually quite happy to announce that as of October 7, 2026, I have visited all 298 of the named lakes in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness! It has been a long and challenging mission, but I can honestly say I thoroughly enjoyed 99% of it. The other 1% consists of those days I endured in the rain, or with thick smoke, but those were few and far between.

It's hard to know where to begin in describing the sights I've seen on this mission. It's probably not a surprise that the beauty of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness surpassed all my expectations. The variety of rock, vegetation, and water that can be found throughout the wilderness is amazing, and allows every trip to have its own unique character and challenges. And while it's true that proximity to the Puget Sound metropolis causes crowding in parts of the ALW, there are plenty of places where solitude can be found. This is especially true, of course, with off-trail destinations, where stalwart adventurers are unlikely to ever encounter another person for days on end. It's not easy to reach some of the spectacular lakes that give the wilderness it's name, but it's almost always worth the effort.

In addition to all the beautiful lakes and scenery, I really enjoyed the planning and mapping aspects of the project. I defined the adventure by staring at topo maps for hours on end, and continued that practice throughout, mainly in route planning for the ever-more challenging lakes on the list. Getting to know the Alpine Lakes Wilderness so thoroughly has been highly interesting to a geography geek like me - I would get lost for hours looking at slope-angle data, satellite imagery, and watershed boundaries. Despite all that, there are still many places in the ALW I haven't been to, and many to which I am eager to return. It's truly an area that holds a lifetime of possibilities.

I hope my adventure has inspired you in your own outdoor recreation or fitness goals, or given you a sense of the beauty and wonder of the ALW via my pictures. If you do decide to venture into the ALW, or any other wilderness area, please remember to follow the principles of Leave No Trace, so that the local wildlife and future generations can thrive and enjoy the wilderness as you have.

Feel free to contact me if you need advice on any part of the ALW, want access to any of my photos or GPS tracks, or want a hiking partner! I'm always up for more adventures.

There Are Two "I"s in Hiking

After I started the mission, I began solo hiking for the first time in my life. While I love solo hiking and the independence it affords, I am very pleased that I found some like-minded souls who joined me on my lake bagging adventures. In 2021, I formed a small hiking group with my friend Jill Cyra, and since then we have organized year-round day hikes and backpacking trips centered around our lake-bagging goal. In total, 41 other hikers joined me or Jill in bagging at least one new lake during the project. Our biggest team effort came in September 2022, when our group (fellowship?) of nine hikers completed the Enchantments Thru-hike.

I'd like to give a special mention to a few folks:

Jill Cyra, who eagerly signed up for the Alpine Lakes Wilderness mission after I met her on a WTA work party in 2021. She may not have been quite sure what she was getting herself into! Even though I had a head start of over 50 lakes, she hiked tirelessly, and was able to catch up and complete the mission with me at our final lake, Pothole Lake.

Jill bagged all 298 ALW lakes!

Photo: Ben and Jill at Lake Grace, October 2024

Miranda Taylor, who was our most reliable and enthusiastic companion on tough backpacking trips. Whether it was bushwhacking, scrambling, or packrafting, Miranda enjoyed it all. She always brings a positive attitude and a wealth of knowledge about nutrition and health.

Miranda joined us in bagging 47 lakes.

Photo: Ben, Miranda, and Jill at French Potholes, July 2026

Jeff Boyce, who introduced me to off-trail hiking, and gave me many tips on route-finding, bushwhacking, and reading terrain. He is an expert on maps and satellite imagery, and was instrumental in plotting routes to some of our more challenging lakes. Jeff is always up for obscure and interesting hikes, regardless of brush conditions!

Jeff bagged 37 lakes with us.

Photo: Ben and Jeff at Hinter Lake, June 2024

My wife Jeannie Gilbert, who held down the fort at home during my many backpacking trips and late night returns. While she doesn't favor bushwhacking, she graduated from the Mountaineers scrambling class with me in 2022, and is a strong hiker. Her main passion is competing in IronMan triathlons, and she also enjoys trail running and hikes with our dog, Hazel.

Jeannie joined me in bagging 33 lakes.

Photo: Ben and Jeannie at Perfection Lake, September 2022

In Memoriam

On a personal note, I'd like to dedicate the completion of my mission to my Dad, Richard Fadden Gilbert. Dad was a prolific mountaineer, having explored the outdoors since his childhood in Gig Harbor. In his late teens, he got the climbing bug, and was a natural talent. He led hikes and climbs for the UW climbing club in the 1960s during his time at school. He ascended summits all over the Cascades and Olympics, including Mount Rainier and many more obscure and difficult peaks.

When I started the ALW mission in 2020, Dad was no longer hiking himself, but I could tell he was excited to follow me vicariously. He was my biggest fan, and I could count on him to look through all of my thousands of photos as soon as I published them. We had lunch together regularly, and the usual topic of conversation was which lakes and peaks I had recently visited, and which of those places he had been to decades earlier. We traded stories about scrambling over boulder fields, fighting through dense brush, and swimming in alpine lakes. While I have not yet aspired to be the technical rock climber that he was, I thoroughly enjoyed his tales of lofty summits, unplanned overnight bivuoacs, and secretly climbing tall buildings on the UW campus (yes, really!).

Sadly, Dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in September of 2023. He passed away less than two months later, surrounded by his family. Though he wouldn't see the completion of my mission, it meant so much to me to share my adventures with him, and I know he was happy to see I was walking in many of his footsteps. Thanks, Dad, for being an inspiration and mentor to me and so many others, and for always being there to support me. You taught me so much, and I am proud to be your son.

What's Next?

One of the most common questions I was asked after completing my mission is "what do you plan to do next?" It is tempting to start another similar mission, like visiting lakes in some other wilderness area, hiking every trail in a particular region, or starting one or more of the local peak-bagging lists. However, my plan at the moment is to split my time fairly evenly among a few interests, in no particular order:

• On-trail backpacking - these trips will be great for friends or family who aren't as interested in off-trail shenanigans as I am!
• Off-trail scrambling / lake bagging - day hikes or backpacking to interesting destinations, often involving lakes. This would be similar to the challenging lake-bagging trips that were part of my mission.
• Peak-bagging - day hikes or backpacking with one or more peaks as a primary objective. Some of these will likely be with The Mountaineers, which is always a fun organization to adventure with.
• Trail work - day hikes or multi-day trips focused on clearing or maintaining trail corridors. We found a huge backlog of necessary trail maintenance on our trips in 2025 and 2026, so I'm fairly confident there will be a never-ending list of possibilities here. Some will be with WTA or other trail organizations, and some will be volunteering directly with land managers (USFS, DNR, etc.).

One benefit of being done with the ALW mission is that it may give me more freedom to branch out into other areas, such as the North Cascades, Olympics, South Cascades, or other states. However, there are still plenty of parts of the ALW I haven't seen yet, or would like to return to, so I won't be turning my back on the Alpine Lakes Wilderness any time soon.

Some of the adventures above will also include packrafting, which is a lot of fun even when you're not doing it to avoid a brush bash.

Statistics

The tables below reveal some interesting data about the Alpine Lakes Wilderness and my completed mission. The hike statistics include every hike where I visited at least one new lake. This amounts to about one-third of my overall hiking since 2020. Comparing the mission hikes to the PCT, I travelled about 70% of the distance, with 110% of the elevation gain.

The ALW goal could certainly have been done with fewer miles and less elevation gain, as many trails were hiked more than once. In the early years, I bagged lakes almost entirely on day hikes, whereas all lakes bagged in the final year (2026) were on overnight trips.

Mission Stats

Total Distance	1,827 miles
Total Elevation Gain	532,900'
Total Time on Trail (not including camp)	1,865 hours (equivalent to 5 months of hiking 12 hours / day)
Average Lakes / Day	1.4
Average Lakes / Hike	2.7
Maximum Lakes / Day	12 (Enchantments Thru-hike)
Maximum Lakes / Hike	22 (Alpine Lakes High Route)
Highest Point Reached	Little Annapurna, 8,485'

Alpine Lakes Wilderness Lakes

Number of Lakes	298
On-Trail Lakes	165 (55%)
Off-Trail Lakes	133 (45%)
Highest Lake	Tranquil Lake, 7,799'
Lowest Lake	Sunday Lake, 1,878'
Largest Lake	Lake Dorothy, 290 acres
Smallest Lake	Jack Lake, 0 acres

Day Hike Stats

Number of Hikes	63
Average Distance	10.8 miles
Average Elevation Gain	3,256'
Average Duration	7.9 hours

Overnight Hike Stats

Number of Hikes	47
Average Distance	24.3 miles
Average Elevation Gain	6,973'
Average Duration (not including camp)	29.1 hours
Nights Camped	102

Photos and Videos

The photo album below is from my final lake bagging hike, to the Dream Lake area in the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River. You can find other photo albums from my hikes on the Hike-O-Meter page.

View the album on Google Photos.