Deer Lake

Beautiful hike on a trail starting from the end of the Sol Duc Hot springs road. We went on this hike and up to the high divide last year but only made it to Deer Lake this year. Trail sign says it's a 4 mile hike to the lake and we took almost 5 hours for the round trip.
First .8 miles gets you to the Sol Duc falls..a great short destination in itself. We got there about 10:30 and the sun was streaming through the trees and mist creating a spectacular rainbow. After taking many pictures we crossed the bridge and began our climb. The first 1/2 mile after the bridge is snow free. The last 2 1/2 miles are all SNOW..deep snow, and yes, we fell through in many places. We did have some boot prints to follow but they were very faded and old and were not always reliable making our trip to the lake more like 5 miles? Thanks for whoever put the orange metal squares on a few of the trees...But there were not enough of them..and they always seemed to be on the opposite side of the tree where we couldn't see them so we had many diversions. There were 3 areas where avalanches crossed the trail but no major problem to cross. Made it to the lake and the bridge over the outlet is melted and dry..provided a great picnic spot. All the campsites are in deep snow. The howling wind across the lake was freezing cold so we didn't stay long. We did not continue on the trail around the lake and up the ridge..the snow was very deep and we didn't see any tracks to follow..maybe we were the first to try to go around the lake. We'll be back later this summer and hike further to the ridge and the peak.