I found this hike in ""100 Classic Hikes in Washington"". What a place! I loved the pleasant walk through the lower woods. Soon after the turnoff to Lake Ann, the trail enters open meadows filled with flowers. The head of the valley is an intimidating rocky cirque, with Lake Ann a thousand feet below it. At 2.5 miles you reach Heather Pass, a flat, green meadow. The trail continues on above the pass with views abounding in all directions. One keeps wondering just where Maple Pass is. Surely it can't be on top of that rocky cirque! The trail winds through numerous snow fields, but the trail itself is clear with good footing. Good thing! You would not want to fall down that rocky face. There is still 6-8 feet of snow on top of the ridge, which is Maple Pass. It will be several weeks before all that is melted so one can complete the circuit back around to Rainy Lake.

Trail is in good shape until Heather Pass. At Heather Pass you start hiking on patches of snow that turn into full snowfields. I'd recommend that you bring hiking poles and/or an iceaxe since some of these snowfields are very steep. The views from the pass are awesome!

I'm pleased to say, ""The larch are out, the larch are out."" With all my hiker buddies out of town I decided to scope out Maple Pass... my requirements for solitary hiking are main roads, open (not deep forested) trails, and this time of year, larch. Starting in woods, I hit some frozen snow and frost crystals in the open, shaded basin but when the trail rounded the corner the way was again clear well past the Lake Ann junction. After several switchbacks took me to Heather Pass and the start of the larch, snow was still nestled in nooks and crannies out of the sun's path. Fall color was showing at the far end of Lake Ann and the larch was glowing against the far ridge, set off by the snow underfoot. The path from Heather to Maple is do-able slippery mud, clear, or partially snow covered depending on the exposure. Laden with camera gear and a fall cold, I hung out at the pass for an hour or two. Snow patches that will develop into cornices are already in place with patches of snow boot deep in places. I think I was the only hiker who didn't do the loop today, but I opted out of the extra elevation gain due to my cold. The loop which I have done before, in even more snow than this, is well worth it. The larch are nearly perfect, quite yellow with just a bit of green.

The trail is finally melting out and is in great shape. One small snow patch still remains at Maple Pass. We did not travel beyond but the trail looked pretty much snowfree for the loop. The mosquitoes are still out at the TH and almost gone elsewhere. When we hiked to Maple Pass, we encountered a trail crew using a little machine to re-grade the trail. They are doing a wonderful job! Could experience some delays when they are blasting during the next week or two.

Would be hard to find a more scenic alpine trail in the Cascades for less effort than this one. Too bad the trailhead is a 3 hour drive from Seattle. The only remaining snow is right at Maple pass and several big fields on the ridge headed south east from Maple Pass. These probably won't melt this year. But today at least they were no problem. The snow was soft enough for easy step kicking and the route was clear. Would love to see the views from this loop trail but today was mostly fog and blowing snow (which wasn't sticking except on top of the old snow).