Road to Rachel was blocked by snow that had been plowed and piled where the county road ends. Not passable about 5.8 miles from trailhead. Not sure if they intend to clear but be aware. We had to turn around and find another trail to hike.

Winter is here!

We hiked Rachel and Rampart lakes on 30th oct and were pleasently surprised by the amount of snow we saw at the top.

Trail has consistent snow from about 0.25 miles before Rachel lake and kept on getting deeper as we made our way up towards the ridge and rampart lakes. Would highly recommend gaiters as we were breaking trail in almost knee deep snow at times. Spikes helped while getting down.

Got very cold up there so 10 essentials a must. The entire region above Rachel lake looks like a pristine winter wonderland. 

The little lakes along rampart have started freezing over and had a thin layer of ice forming over them.

Was snowing lightly throughout our hike above Rachel lake. 12 miles round trip. We just ran into 2 other hikers on the day.

I hiked to Rachel and Rampart Lakes on last Friday, 10/25.
The road to the TH is in excellent condition, when I pulled up at 8:30am in the morning, there were only 1 other car there.

The first part of the Trail was relatively flat, exactly 2.7 miles.
but 5-6 creek/ water crossing, only 1 being little bit tricky; since everything was frozen that morning. 3 tree log crossing.

The forest looked very much dead in the morning, everything was frozen.
It was very eerie, since I was walking alone through this frozen forest.

From 2.7 mile mark, the trail starts gaining elevation to the Rachel Lake. the whole section was muddy and you need to climb through the Roots and rocks.
Very much fun, especially considering the first part is very much boring.

The snow started near the Rachel Lake, and after that its pretty much consistent in rest of the Trail.
The snow level is not too deep, easily walkable but little bit slippery.
There was a pond near the Rachel Lake, was completely frozen that morning!

I climbed up the Rampart ridge and tried to survive the blast of cold wind up there. It was freezing and there were snow throughout up that ridge.
Pretty cool to see that there were icicles forming in the soil.

I was struggling to cope up with the cold freezing wind and did not wanna walk all the way to Rampart Lakes;
called it off from 0/5 miles away from the Lakes.
The weather got better later in the afternoon though, the Sun came out and the wind slowed down. Unfortunately, by then I am almost back to the parking Lot.

Saw only 2 people while going to the Lakes in the morning, and another 25 while returning.
Came back to the Parking Lot at 2 pm; there were 10+ cars in the lot.

Pretty good hike in my opinion, 9.4 miles with 2520 ft gain.
Not crowded at all, that's a big green flag for me LOL!

Definitely, gonna come back again in summer.

Gorgeous day to be on the trail.  Fall colors in full force.  Trail was mostly dry.  The few stream crossings were doable without getting feet wet.  The main parking lot was mostly full when I arrived around 10:30am, but I only saw a few other people on the trail all day.  An owl was hooting "well done" to me towards the end of the trek back to the parking lot.

My device recorded the steep part of the trail as about 1.5mi with a round trip of 9.6miles.  While I did do a bit of exploring around the lake, it was nowhere near an extra mile.

Arrived at the Rachel Lake trailhead at 7:45am on Saturday. Much less vehicles in the parking lot then expected. Bathrooms were open, but no toilet paper. Started around 8:15am, and made it to Rachel Lake around 10:15am. Then headed up to Lila Lake, and Alta Mountain. Only a handful of people up on Alta.