Easy hike with lots of stinging nettles and soon to be salmon berries. Wear pants. Parts of the trail was narrow and overgrown but mostly pleasant with a few trees down to climb over.

Tadpoles galore at beaver lake and a few other wildlife sightings of a garter snake, frogs and a few cool bugs.

Parking lot was full on a sunny 80° Saturday. Passed a lot of people which is undesirable for me on a trail but it was what it was. My man & I did not go to the trails end, maybe a mile in and turned around. Wildflowers present, salmon berries coming in ~2-3weeks.

**There is a tree down that requires some light climbing to pass over it. If you are pretty much in shape you will be OK, the surrounding roots are firm enough to act as handles, nothing crazy. No extra gear required for us, mid twenties people.


*****The stinging nettles are something to watch out for on this trail. Wear long pants or else they will get you.

Couldn't get to trailhead for Peek-a-Boo Lake so detoured to Beaver and Whitechuck instead. Was a beautiful and quiet drive through Darrington, no complaints with traffic car nor people-wise. Stunning, tranquil, many random offside viewpoints offered panoramic views. 

In my home stretch of lowland hikes before the snow melts!  Beaver Lake was first on my list, and I was pleasantly surprised by this one.  It's pretty much a straight path forward, but there are many side trails out to Sauk River on your right.  The second such path leads to a USGS monitoring station, but if you drop down the rock steps, you'll reach a nice little beach along the peridot water.  I couldn't find a trail at the end of the beach, so I retraced my steps.  

There's tons of skunk cabbage growing along the swampy sides, and I think they're quite beautiful in the sunlight.  Yes, the slide/blowdown is still there, but it's easily navigable if you go down by the beach which you'll want to anyway to see pretty Mt. Pugh which is so stark in the distance.  This was my favorite part of the hike.  You climb the embankment (follow the footsteps) back up to the trail where you'll soon reach Beaver Lake (more like a pond).  I didn't see any beavers unfortunately, but I did see their wonderful dams.  Maybe the beavers gnawned down that bridge so we couldn't cross and disturb their little beaver city!

I headed over to White Chuck Bench, but hadn't read the directions so clearly, and followed the brown sign on the left of Mountain Loop Highway that said "White Chuck Bench TH 6 miles," to get to the upper trailhead instead of going towards the lower trailhead via the White Chuck Boat Launch.  However, after reading trip reports for that hike, it appears that these are 2 ends of the same trail and that the middle is really overgrown and full of blowdowns so they no longer realistically connect.

I just made it to the trailhead with my Forester although there was a bit of snow and some potholes (esp at the beginning of Road 23).  The first part is very easygoing, well-maintained, and meanders around the serene forest.  Once you start heading down, the trail rounds a bend where you'll cross a bridge over falls, then see a view of Mt. Pugh sandwiched between two other mountains.  This was the nicest part of this trail IMO, and as I sauntered along thinking I'd eventually reach White Chuck River, little did I know I never would.  This trail is somewhat misleading because at some points it feels like it's winding its way down to the river.  In fact, you'll run into more and more questionable blowdowns and hopefully finally give up like I did.  I went about 3 miles in until I started getting a weird feeling and then sulkily turned around because I was too tired to do any more "exploring."  This hike has the potential for some nice side trails that lead to the river, but so far there aren't any that I could find.

All in all, still a wonderful day of hiking although I reminded myself to prepare a little better next time.  You can actually get good views of White Chuck River and Mountain from Road 23, and I paused to take photos at one point.  Spring is just around the corner, so enjoy those winter hikes to the max!

On this nice day I needed to return here to check my handiwork.  I cleared the Lookout Tree Trail last week, some from each end so didn't walk it all at once.

The Beaver Lake Trail has not been maintained yet this year, plenty of branches and trees down, some brush.  Likely it will only be taken care of to the broken bridge over Beaver Lake.

I started from the Lookout Tree end, 2.5 miles up the Mountain Loop from the Beaver Lake T.H..  Went barefoot across the river channel between the trails, found a log next to the river where I could sit and rinse my feet before putting my shoes back on.  I walked the road back to my car because I didn't want to take off my shoes again.

I looked more carefully at the broken bridge, it appears they did it right last time it was rebuilt 20 or so years ago.  There are metal footings across the Lake, should be able to be disassembled and reconstructed fairly easily.

In these economic tough times, wanted you all to know Navy Federal Credit Union still has a 17 month 2.25% CD which can be opened with as little as $50 and added to (max. $75,000) later.