Marion Lake Hike

A couple of friends and I did a day hike to Marion Lake.

We started at the Marion Lake Trailhead which is off of Highway 22. You are required to have a valid user pass which can be obtained at any Forest Service office. The first portion of the hike shown in red is 2 ¼ miles and climbs approximately 1000 feet. Since the trail quickly enters the Mt Jefferson Wilderness you are required to sign in at the trailhead and get a permit. There is no cost for this; it just provides the Forest Service with information on numbers of people in the wilderness. Our total roundtrip hike was 7 ½ miles and gained 1800 feet.

The trail snakes its way up through an old forest, not sure that it qualifies as old-growth, but there are some very large fir trees.  Many of the bigger trees, like the one below show the signs of a forest fire many years ago.

The first lake that you come to is Lake Ann.

Then on to Marion Lake. The lake is sizeable and I have been told that the fishing can be very good, although we didn’t give it a try and couple guys we ran into said the fishing had been slow for them.

This is a shot from the bridge at the outlet which forms Marion Creek.

We decided to continue on up the trail to the Eight Lakes Basin. We ended at Jenny Lake where we had lunch. This section of the trail was 1 ½ miles and added an additional 800 feet of elevation gain.

Marion Lake

On the far side of Jenny Lake can be seen the damage done by the B&B forest fire that occurred in 2003. This was 12 years ago.

Jenny Lake

In early September when we did the hike the Vine Maple was just beginning to turn color.