Alice Lake, Toxaway, Imogene Loop: Part 1

A Change of Plans

It had taken me a while to warm up to my daughter’s plan to hike Havasupai Falls in March of 2020, but I was finally there! Our close mutual friends were in and so was my daughter and her friend. We all started making plans and getting very excited for the trip, helped along by another friend who had taken the hike with her daughters in 2019. Then….bam! COVID-19. At first we thought maybe we could still do the hike, with limited services available. By our late-March date it was all over. The lockdown was on.

My wife and I have been taking what we consider big hikes now for about five years. We started with a huge day hike to Ruby Dome, a 5,000 vertical foot up and 5,000 foot back in one day which nearly toppled us. The next year, we cheated and summited a tall Thomas Peak from a high parking lot! we followed a friend’s success with a three-day, 35-mile Ruby Crest Trail hike that had even more vertical. Then, last year, it was the Seven Devils loop in the Seven Devils wilderness of Idaho for a 3.5-day 33 mile trip. We thought Havasupai would fit the bill nicely this year, but as they say “first world problems” intervened. My daughter came to our rescue with her plan to hike the Alice Lake to Toxaway Lake loop in central Idaho, one she had completed a couple of times before.

Alice-Toxaway Loop (and Imogene?)

Tammy and I are pretty much always in for about any adventure with our adult kids, so we gladly accepted Amanda’s idea to hike in the Sawtooth Wilderness this summer. Me being the consummate masochist, I turned to Gaia GPS to figure out trails, vertical elevations, likely stopping points, and number of days. What I quickly realized was we could see a lot more country by only investing two or three extra miles and including Imogene and Hell-Roaring lakes into our itinerary. After a quick look at my idea, Amanda agreed it would be well worth the extra coupla miles to put those two gems into the trip!

So we ended up with what we called the Alice-Toxaway-Imogene loop instead of the traditional Alice-Toxaway loop that is commonly taken by most. Granted, we were not even close to the first folks to think this up, it just is the less common path traveled. My thought was that we could do the loop from north to south, but Amanda insisted we’d enjoy it more if we went south to north. In hindsight, I think she was right. By going south to north, you experience more of the beauty sooner, with the last 9 miles or so being a bit more of a downhill slog. Each had their pros and cons but we were really happy with how my daughter had us complete it.

Prepping for Alice Lake Leg

This year Amanda would be our guide as the three of us explored the Sawtooth Wilderness. She set the agenda and we were able to enjoy the scenery! We decided to leave a vehicle at the south side of the creek below Hell Roaring to save some hiking miles. As we shuttled her rig into that upper trailhead the night before our hike began, we quickly realized that we could hike about twice as fast as the road allowed vehicular travel. Frustrated, we opted to cut our 4WD losses and just back out of that trail and hike the extra two miles rather than have to drive that trail again!

Even though I’m not a fan of cooked meals when multi-day hiking, I allowed for a little extra weight of freeze-dried meals and I packed the stove fuel. Overall though, our packs were obscenely light, with me at about 24 pounds and Tammy just a tad less at 22 pounds. We still brought a lot of food off the mountain at the end, so we could have trimmed probably another pound or two. Who needs underwear….I don’t need no stinking underwear! We opted to arrive Thursday afternoon and sleep at the trailhead. We planned for an easy first day, so slept in and had breakfast.

Day 1 – Alice and Twin Lakes

The start to the trip was uneventful. The Pettit Lake trailhead was pretty busy when we got there, but we found a parking spot in the lot. We grabbed our gear and headed upward. It wasn’t too long before we started warming up quite a bit. July heat seared us even at 7,500 feet elevation and we were very mindful of shady rest spots on the way to Alice Lake. The plentiful shade on the way up made all the difference. The scenery was absolutely beautiful in a near-perfect mixture of lush riparian and hillside growth that gave way to intimidating Idaho Batholith granite spires that give the mountain range its name. Truly saw-toothed ridgetops that drop to U-shaped valleys with plenty of lakes caught in the glacial till.

As we approached Alice Lake I was struck by its size compared to most alpine lakes with which I’m familiar. Truly deep blue depths give way to turquoise shores, particularly in the southern end. There were a pretty good pile of folks camped up for the day or for the night at Alice Lake, so we found a tiny little nook of shore where we could remove our boots and socks and cool down. The rest turned out to be most very welcome, as my knees and feet had already started to talk to me in the unfriendly way they sometimes do. Despite this bit of pain I was genuinely surprised when I laced up my boots and got up to resume the hike. Pain ensued. Lord, please let me finish this hike…this very hike that I’ve only finished a scant bit of yet has still laid me low!

Camping at Twin Lakes

Hmm…well I was not feeling too spry after only a six-plus mile hike, but then we must push on. Amanda led the way, Tammy following, and me bringing up the rear hobbling just a bit. Once we got to Twin Lakes, the story was similar…lots of people. Lucky for us, Amanda had been there before and new of a good camping location a ways off the trail to the north. Not a moment too soon we had our tents pitched and camp up, as a group of hikers went by our camp clearly seeking a spot to lay up. There are quite a few camp spots at these two lakes, but apparently they fill up pretty fast!

Twin Lakes made for a beautiful camp and we got to enjoy lots of little trout rising aggressively to some kind of midge hatch whenever the wind receded. This turned out to be a very nice place to stay and was well worth the hike to put another mile or so into the bank toward the next day. I had a rough feeling that day 2 was going to be a butt-kicker so I pretty well insisted with the team that we leave as early as possible, preferably well before sunrise. We made a bit of a compromise to have breakfast along the way, and were able to get away just a bit before sunrise, making an easy climb to the pass between Twin Lakes and Toxaway.

Day 2 Starts

Our trek to breakfast began with a pretty nice climb of about 500 feet that proved fun and relatively easy. I was surprised (I always am) at how sleep-refreshed my legs and spirit were as we rose up the mountain in the morning sun. Dropping over the other side it was cool and breezy and we made and ate breakfast with some in the party wearing jackets! Being cool is so much better than being hot…or so they say.

This was going to be our biggest day of both climbing and hiking and I knew it would tell the story of the trip. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to relax too long at beautiful Toxaway lake as we were on a schedule. We passed by this lake in all of its splendor but Amanda would not be denied a chance to go down to the shore for a few minutes. The trail along the west side stays up above the lake shore a fair ways but she was able to visit the water briefly on the north end. I didn’t have a chance to assess the number of campers at Toxaway, but I think it is like any of these lakes…some spots available in the morning, far less so as the afternoon rolls on. If you want a decent spot, leave early from the parking lot!

Day 2 Decision – Imogene?

We had agreed to assess how we were all feeling at the trailhead to Edith Lake (between Farley and Toxaway lakes). If we were feeling awful, on to night two camp at Farley and then take the dusty route back to Pettit with our tails down. If we were feeling unanimously spry and ready to rock on, then up we would climb the 1200 feet up to the saddle between Edith and Imogene. We all wanted to see Imogene for the first time, but I felt we needed a sanity check point to allow for a retreat.

Luckily for the team, we arrived at the decision point in really good shape, with a cool shady downhill hike giving us wings. The hurt was coming if we chose Door A, but Door B felt like quitting. I made a pitch that we try Edith Lake for lunch, for better or for worse, and then decide on Imogene. We could still fall back to Farley if that part didn’t go well. I’ll let you know what happened in the second and final part of this article….Imogene, or no?