Great hike with very few hikers on the trail. Took our dog and 6 year old. Trail was in super condition for the first few miles we hiked - didn’t make full length. Hiked down to the lake and there were SOO many butterflies.

Snow berm blocking access road to upper trail head. Parked off the road by the locked access gate for boats and hiked down the road a little ways to trail head. Trail had fresh snow on old tracks and was pretty bumpy the first half mile that is wide. Once the trail turns if becomes a pretty nice single track with one tree in the first half mile that we crawled under, it was a big one! Great day in the woods of the Colville National Forest, never saw anyone but the ice fisherman out on the lake.

I did my near-annual Thanksgiving weekend trail run at Bead Lake today, and found that while the snow is still lingering on the access road to the upper TH, it is also melting fast. I made it up without any problems in my Subaru, and the weather is projected to be even warmer tomorrow so it may melt out entirely before the next cold & snowy weather arrives. The trail was still very snowy in the shady areas, but was completely melted out in the areas that receive sun during the day. I even found asters in bloom! There were a handful of trees down following the recent windstorm, including one Doug fir that didn't fall across the trail, but instead whose root-wad took out an approximately 15' section of the trail tread when it fell. That one is already a little tricky to navigate and will become more difficult once the snow gets deeper. It's located about a mile from the upper end of the lakeshore trail.

Also, I found a single trekking pole along the trail. If you recently lost one here, please get in touch & describe what it looks like! 

Upper Bead Lake Ridge road to the trail head has a tree over it, I can see we’re cars have gone under where it’s limbed but we choose to turn around and park alongside road by the gate, not blocking it. Trail itself is in great shape, other than a handful of blow downs to go over or under. Only two of them required a scramble. There is some deterioration in a spot where a log is along the outer edge of trail, you can now see some daylight, it’s small and narrow but easy to walk past. The surprise was the start of all the wildflowers along trail we saw Arnica, Shooting Stars, Ball Waterleaf, Prairie Star, Buttercups, Skunk Cabbage, Trillium and a lot of Phlox. Hiked to Pole Lodge Camp in the back for lunch before refacing the route back to cars. Saw two backpackers and three mountain bikers all day. 10 miles round trip and 1400” elevation. 

Upper trail head parking lot was still in great shape when I left Bead Lake 1/25 after the recent snowfall over the weekend, with very little accumulation. Trail is  a mix of a few inches of snow, a little  ice and bare ground. Hiked with a group of  six and encountered several down trees, three large that we either had to go over or under, but all passable. Never saw another person until late afternoon and that was a group of three backpackers and a dog who left very early the next morning. After most of our group left my friend and I set about setting up camp at one of the spots along the lake and enjoyed the solitude and snow fall with a campfire. Sunday we had a total of five hikers all day and another day of snow with very little accumulation. Packed up Monday to head home and only saw one person, ice fishing on the lake.