Clara and Marion Lakes
Wenatchee,
Washington
Overview
The Clara and Marion Lakes hike is located only 20 minutes outside of Wenatchee at Mission Ridge, and offers hikers a blend of pristine mountain scenery, alpine lakes, and pine forests. With a starting elevation of 4,500ft, the trail melts out later in the season than other lower elevation trails. However, this means in the summer months are a great time to hike the trail with cooler temperatures and wildflowers well into July.
The trail starts ascending rapidly, meandering through a diverse forest of Douglas fir, hemlock, and cedar. As the hike progresses uphill, it leads hikers through rocky switchbacks and open meadows adorned with wildflowers during the spring and summer months. After roughly 1.5 miles of hiking, the trail reaches Clara Lake, a relatively small but beautiful alpine lake nestled amidst the pine trees. This is also a popular camping spot, with families enjoying the lake. Proceed past Clara :ake for a quarter of a mile to the even smaller Marion Lake (you will pass by another small unnamed body of water) which lies below the basalt covered slopes of Mission Peak.
Directions
Parking
Trip Reports
While the smoke had abated considerably in the Chelan Valley recently, I wanted to head to other environs for my mom's birthday hike. I had originally been planning on taking them to Cutthroat Lake in the North Cascades, but the Easy fire was lowering the air quality, so I decided on Clara and Marion Lakes. It was a relatively short hike, suitable for my mom, dad and 9 year son.
While on the way to Wenatchee, my mom realized she had forgotten her hiking shoes and after a quick detour to Alberg Sports in Wenatchee she had a new pair of shoes and we were ready to begin hiking. I was somewhat surprised to find close to 15 cars in the parking lot when we arrived - there was a large group camping up at Clara Lake, as we only encountered a couple groups on the way up.
I was surprised by the relatively steep incline of the trail right from the start. In hindsight I should have expected it, as the trail covers 900 feet in a little over a mile. Fortunately my parents had left behind their 13 and half year old dog, as I think she would have struggled on this hike. The rest of the group was fine, although we did take a couple of breaks on the way up.
The trail was fairly well shaded on the hike up, as it switchbacked through the forest. There were occasional open areas, and at this elevation, there were still a good number of wildflowers in bloom. The alpine lupine was past its prime, but Indian Paintbrush and others were still well in bloom.
After about a half mile, the trail split in two and I was left guessing which direction to go, as I hadn't seen any indication there was a trail junction at this point in the hike. We went left, which ended up going up through a nice open meadow with lots of wildflowers, and it quickly connected back up with the other trail.
About a mile into the hike, the trail incline moderated and we cruised along towards the lake, although at this point we hadn't yet caught sight of it. The forest felt quite green and a lot less dry than what I was used to hiking around Chelan.
A half mile later we were at Clara Lake. While passing a group on the way up, they had mentioned there were quite a number of children playing and screaming at the lake, and this indeed was the case when we arrived. There was a large group camped on left hand side of the lake, and they were cheering on a couple boys on the other side of the lake who were getting ready to jump into the water. While my son was ready for a lunch break, we decided to press on and head to Marion Lake for a little more tranquil experience.
We followed the trail and eventually passed by a small body of water on the left. I was pretty sure that wasn't Marion Lake, and after continuing along for another tenth of a mile we arrived at Marion Lake. There was a gentleman finishing up fishing in the lake, otherwise we had to lake to ourselves. We talked with him briefly and he mentioned he caught a number of trout.
We had a nice lunch at the lake on a log looking up at the rock strewn slopes of Mission Peak, but had to occasionally fend off some flies and mosquitos. My paren't dog Belle cooled off in the lake, and then we proceeded to head back down past Clara Lake, and retraced our steps back to the car.
It ended up being a great hike near Wenatchee, with lots of wildflowers still in bloom. With a nice breeze and decent shade on the way up, it's definitely a good summertime hike when temperatures are too hot down low. The trail was a little steeper than expected, but my 9 year old son, 76 year old mom and 79 year old father all enjoyed the hike.
