The hike to Circlet Lake starts from the nordic trail parking lot at Mount Washington.  If some of these pictures look familiar it is because this hike starts on the same trail that takes you to Lake Helen McKenzie or Kwai Lake.  The  trail to Circlet Lake leads off to the right just about the spot that the trail to Kwai Lake cuts to the left.  On our return trip we went past Kwai Lake and took the route past Battleship Lake to complete the circle.  See the map.

My next disclaimer relates to listing this as a back packing trip.  We did it as one but it would make a good day hike too.  It was about a 4 hour hike one way.  This summer, my friend Sandra and I were hoping to do the Cape Scott Trail.  I set up a series of hikes intended to get us into shape to do this three day backpacking trip.  Sandra had never carried a pack before and so I suggested we do Circlet Lake since it is a fairly short hike (I am guessing maybe 10-12 kms) with little elevation gain.  There is designated camping at the lake and this seemed like a nice trail for a first experience backpacking.

It took Sandra a half hour or so to adjust to the pack.  Here she is at the very start of the trail feeling like an indentured Sherpa.
 
 

The first half hour on the trail takes you through Paradise Meadows.  Both Sandra and I have done this part of the trail many times before but it is still a visual treat.
 
 

There is a bit of a climb then to Lake Helen McKenzie.  Trails are very well marked and any fork or turn off is clearly signed.  We stopped at Hairtrigger Lake for lunch and arrived at Circlet about an hour later.
 
 

This is a very sensitive, alpine area where you are asked to walk only on the trails and camp only on the  platforms that are provided for that purpose.  When we arrived at our destination, Sandra sat down and refreshed her make up, cleaned her boots and began reorganizing her pack.  I set up the tent.

We went down and sat with our feet in the water at the edge of the lake for awhile and then returned to our camp to start dinner.  I lit the stove and started the cooking.  Sandra decided her pack needed to be reorganized.  She pulled everything out and began repacking it.   While she was busy with this I proceeded to louse up a recipe that required me to pour some pasta into boiling water and then add a sauce mix 15 minutes later.  Next time maybe Sandra will allow me to organize her pack while she does the cooking.  We finally gave up on getting any more of the water to boil off without causing the pasta to disintegrate completely and ate a pasta soup which was tasty enough but probably not much like what the manufacturer intended.

The mosquitoes were bad so once we finished dinner and cleaned up, we retreated to the shelter of our tent where Sandra unpacked and repacked her pack for the remainder of the evening.    Here she is first thing the next morning.
 
 

There were quite a few groups camped at Circlet Lake the night we were there.  Many were using this camp as a base and doing the climb of Mt. Albert Edward as a day hike.  (About 6km and 4 hours one way.)  We have that on the list for next year.