In August of 2024, we took a beautiful hike to Spider Meadows above Lake Wenatchee. The trail is referred to most places as Spider Meadow and Phelps Basin. To reach the trailhead, you drive more than an hour on really slow, really rough, roads after leaving the Lake Wenatchee area. We left our little room at oh-dark-30 just to get to the trailhead by around 7:30.

The trail is quite smooth and well-maintained and starts out under the cover of forest. Around 3 miles in, the forest cover becomes lighter and a little past 5 miles you emerge into a picturesque meadow surrounded by high peaks. Even in August there were still delightful wildflowers.

It was a very warm day and one of the rare days I consumed my 3 liters of water and was empty and dry when we got back to the trailhead. But it was a beautiful, uncrowded hike, of close to 11 miles with a very mild elevation gain. However, you start out at over 5,000 feet, so we could feel that part. A beautiful day.