Twin Lakes and Lake Lillian

Well...I typically don't like to rag too hard on a trail so people will not be discouraged to try the trail and form their own opinions. However, this trail I have to give a small thumbs down to at this point. It has more to do with the time of season I hiked it then anything else. However, I will preface any negativity by mentioning that the snow is clear up to the trail head parking area, so that's a plus. You don't have to snowshoe from the beginning of the jeep roads up to the the trailhead.

          The first 0.5 miles of trail is a wide trail but a tad over grown with limbs, branches, and small blow downs that frankly irritated me a lot. A solid bush-whacking job needs to be done on this trail by anyone who likes to deal with that sort of thing. At approx. 0.5 miles in, the trail abruptly becomes more narrow and turns into denser 2nd growth forest as it switches back. From here on out, the long snow patches covering the trail make it hard to always correctly discern the path of the trail through the trees, brush, and rocks. At certain points I felt like I wasn't even on the trail, but I just kept running along the same ridge which the trail runs along, eventually reaching to a flat point about 200ft under a 5,100 ft summit left unidentified by my map. Here, I knew the trail was very close according to the map, and I even found a couple of markers. But at the last marker I found, it looked like the trail probably went into a very thick forest around the west side of the nameless summit. This was probably less than 0.5 miles away from where you'd split off to Margaret lake. With a continuous layer of snow covering any other potential marker, I felt a little un-prepared to self-navigate this day since I had never hiked this trail before. I had no markers in my backpack, nor a GPS as I didn't expect the trail to narrow so much into thick forest and snow. Barely anyone had snowshoed or hiked their recently...allowing no previously used path to follow. So, I hiked to the top of the summit I was right under...and then followed my shoe prints back.

        I consider myself a fairly skilled navigator, so for me to decide to turn back is a caution to others. If you've hiked the trail before, you'd probably be fine even without footprints or being able to see the trail for long stretches. But if it's your first time, or you don't know basic map or GPS nav skills..don't be a prideful hiker and try to continue on beyond a 1 mile to 1.5 miles in. I easily envision someone getting lost for quite a few hours under the current conditions if they are not confident in their abilities to navigate without a clear trail in front of them.

      In conclusion...there's no reason to hike this trail now. There is not enough deep snow to merit snowshoeing, but too much snow to prevent easy navigation along the trail. Give the snow another 2 or 3 weeks to melt, and then go when you can see the ground your stepping on :) Final note; by getting to the nameless summit,I was able to tell that great views are there to be seen if you can get up to the ridge and beyond to Lake Lillian.