Attempted Park Butte yesterday. Drove all the way to the TH. Snow gets deep but manageable in the forest after crossing the stream. In the basin snow was super deep and soft which made our moving super slow. My buddy didn't have snowshoe and I was breaking the trail most of the time. We made it to the ridge and turned around because it was too late and Snow was waist deep. Snow needs to settle for a couple days otherwise it is so energy consuming.

We arrived at the trailhead around 12:15 PM. 2-3 cars in the parking lot. As we began, snow began to fall but tapered off, making for a beautiful scene. The last mile is covered in snow. Most parties we passed turned around before the lookout as we had it to ourselves for our break. The clouds cleared so we had a great view of Mt Baker. Micro-spikes and trekking poles would’ve been nice coming down at least. The snow was soft as it was above freezing during our day trip. Highly recommend this hike.

A glorious day on the trail! We started up at 8:00am and saw nearly no one until getting near the lookout. The fall foliage and views were extraordinary. With sunny skies, cool winds and no bugs, we were in heaven! 

The trail was in good shape. We went up in the late morning and the river crossings were dry, by the time we came back down they were running with melt off from the glacier. So we had to take a little different path back across. Great hike, beautiful day!

I’m always nervous about “partly sunny” forecasts as I’ve been burned before, but today the clouds remained high and Baker was fully visible for most of the day. The first glacial creek crossing was a little tricky in the afternoon but we made it across with dry feet. If you don’t care about keeping your feet dry, it would be easy to ford.

The fall colors were starting but didn’t seem to be at peak yet. Maybe another week or two.