Dead Lake

A small alpine lake emerges from steep forested slopes at 3.8 miles, sitting in a granite basin ringed by glacial cirque geometry—the unmistakable U-shaped valley carved by Pleistocene ice. The terminal moraine that dams the lake is not a continuous berm but a pile of glacially-sorted boulders and clay, left behind as the ice retreated thousands of years ago. The moraine acts as the basin's only containment; examine the unsorted grain sizes from clay to house-sized blocks—a single glacial deposit. Steep final sections mean real elevation gain, exposure, and physical preparation.