We ran the Foss Lakes loop CCW, starting at the West Fork Foss Lakes trailhead, and running the 2.5 mile forest road at the end to connect the loop after reaching the Necklace Valley trailhead.
The weather was great, the views were beautiful, and the trail was easy to find up through Chetwoot Lake. After that, we scrambled over boulders up to the ridge, and then across the ridge to the Iron Cap summit. Heading up and down from the summit was the toughest part of this route, as it was steep and rocky, with a lot of exposure at times, and not much of a trail, if any at all. We lost and found trails many times between Chetwoot Lake and Tank Lake, and even below Tank Lake. We also saw a bear below Tank Lake!
We definitely weren’t expecting this to take 16+ hours, and had to run the last 3.5 hours in the dark. However, we came prepared with enough extra food, layers, and headlamps. We filtered water along the way, and wished we had filtered more for the section between between Chetwoot and Tank. This was definitely a challenge that we underestimated!