I took my 6 year old daughter on her first hike and overnight camping. I had heard this was an easy hike for kids. After our trip I would call Heather Lake more of a moderate difficulty hike. This trail has a couple small water crossings and one larger stream you have to walk through. You will certainly want some good hiking boots. The trail has lots of rocks and deep roots to climb over and up. Then at the last half mile we hit snow. Lots of it. I had overnight equipment in a pack which made going uphill in snow more difficult. I was very surprised to see 10 feet of snow late in May. The lake itself was beautiful with numerous waterfalls coming off the surrounding ridge. The snow prevented walking the perimeter of the lake. Call ahead to see if there are reports of snow and be prepared. Snow shoes not required but ski poles would have helped.

I'll be back later in the summer.

A perfect snow hike to end a great year and obviously a lot of other folks thought the same thing today. Jon and I were first, however, so we had the heavy lifting tromping down the trail. Heather Lake is an easy, quick hike in the summer only a skosh over 2 miles from the trailhead and gaining 1200 feet. In winter, however, its a bit slower and because the Pilchuck Road was slippery and unplowed, we parked all the way down at the Mountain Loop Highway. So it made for a 7 mile round trip and good exercise.

The trail is easy to follow. At least 14 pairs of snowshoes have beaten it down. There are many blowdowns. We cleared some with my trusty saw, but I could have spent all day just doing that. Many tree limbs and vine maple branches bow over the trail loaded with snow. The last 400 feet to the lake were completely obscured, but Chris and Erica from Snohomish passed us as I was sawing and cleared a path. The snow was coming down so hard that we could not even see the further shore. Meanwhile back at the trailhead loads of cars and kids were sledding, building snowpersons, and playing in spite of the sheriff's sign saying the road up to Pilchuck was closed.

Backpacking with two 9-year-olds, we switched our trip to here at the last minute after reading reports of swarms of bugs at our original destination. Good thing; if these were the light bugs, I never want to see heavy bugs. DEET kept most of the mosquitoes away (i.e., our daughters got just a few dozen bites), but the flies were merciless, and undisturbed by mild breezes.

But enough about bugs. The trail is fine, although steep in the middle and partly eroded in places. The lake is beautiful, with rocks and a logjam that the kids explored endlessly, and great swimming. There were ripe huckleberries intermittently all along the trail, from near the trailhead up to Heather Lake and even Glasses Lake above. We had the campsite to ourselves on Thursday and Friday nights, although there were several day hikers each day and two backpacking parties arrived Saturday. There's a delightful wooden toilet at the campsite.

A dayhike from Heather Lake to Glasses Lake took about an hour each way; there's a trail all the way, although in many places it's overgrown and you have to bushwhack a little. Follow the trail clockwise around Heather Lake until the inlet stream; the trail up to Glasses from there is marked with orange and pink ribbons for about 2/3 of the way, until you pass a meadow and begin the final steep climb (for which I strongly recommend hiking boots, and poles if you got 'em). Beyond that point, the ribbons disappear, but the trail is easy to follow.

Thought with all the damage done this winter we would be in store for lots of blowdown! We were pleasantly surprised by what little we had to climb over to get up to the lake. Most of the 6 or 7 trees (4 spots)we had to get around were within the first mile of the hike. A couple of pecker poles further up, but nothing worth mentioning. The worst is right at the start of the hike, 100 yards out, had to get through Devils Club patch to get around 1st tree. The trail is in good shape all the way to the lake. There were a few snow patches in the last mile, but trail easy to see. No Bugs to speak of, but we had a nice breeze the whole way up and back.