We didn't go to the lake, instead, continued along Copper Glance Creek to climb West Craggy and Big Craggy on Sunday.

There is a pond near the fork: lake or the creek (to the Craggies). This pond doesn't look appetizing. Most bugs here. Slightly less bugs lower or higher. There were even bugs at the summits, but not bad.

The trail itself is not very steep. It's in good condition (apart from occasional "detours" around fallen logs). Once past the pond, no trail to be found.

For the climb itself on Sunday 7/24. We went up West Craggy first, then traversed the ridge (staying mostly on the ridge proper, or to its west or south side), then up to Big Craggy. From there, we came down the scree slope. Overall, no snow to be worried about. A little bit of snow on the way up to West. The steepest section is climbing up to the ridge on the way to West Craggy. We only found one cairn at the turn to Big Craggy. Otherwise, pick your own track.

Flowers were good, but could be better, mostly yellow (arnika) and white (yarrow, velarian). I can see aster coming, fireweed is at least 2 weeks away. On the lower trail, many magenta colored paintbrush, sedum, saw a few mallow and collomia.

Mosquitoes from the trailhead all the way to the summit. Where the pond is, is the worst. I ate inside my tent!

This is the 2nd creek crossing:

This is the mosquito pond

The mine:

Flowers at and above the meadowy slope:

The 2 ponds on the way to West Craggy:

My climbing partner at the top of West Craggy. As you can see, once you are on the ridge, it's an easy walk. But going up to the ridge is STEEP.

From West to Big Craggy

Coming down from Big Craggy is loose scree, steep, but not dangerously steep.

Route

C2C of Big Craggy & West Craggy with a party of 2. About 5,600 over 12.7mi in 9.45hrs (6h up, 5min summit break, 3.5h down) on a chill pace with no breaks.

Gear: trail running shoes, one trekking pole & PMA (Positive Mental Attitude)

Carried but didn't use: Pants

Mazama store: open until 6pm. ~1h drive on the way back. The sandwiches are great! 

Gpx: https://caltopo.com/m/EHPNG

C2c of Big Craggy with a group of 4. About 4,570ft over 6.7mi in 10.5h (6h up, 1h summit break, 3.5h down) on a chill pace with many breaks.

Trailhead: Copper glance trailhead. Use coordinates: 48.740889, -120.292000. Has a wooden sign and a small pull-out spot that fits 5 cars. No toilets. Gaia Topo seems to incorrectly label it north of these coordinates. 

Road: gravel road ~9mi from the trailhead, cruising condition (35-40 mph) with a few small potholes. A major washout spot and a pond 3.5mi from the trailhead. Def drive an AWD with high clearance. 

The Copper Glance trail has many burned down trees to go over, under or around. Crossed Copper Glance Creek at 4,200ft. Highly recommend packing water crossing shoes (sandals, old sneakers, etc) and fording it instead of using the slippery logs. Water level was knee high for me (I'm 5'4) early AM and even higher on the return. Left the trail at 5,600ft and headed straight up (NW) the forest (wild flowers and mushroom!). Expect the rest of the path to be pretty much perpendicular to the contour lines. Again many burned down trees but generally wide open. Patches of snow started at 6,300ft. Postholey (and somewhat avoidable) snow started at 6,600ft. Be careful around the tree wells and partially exposed logs / fallen trees and rocks - more hollow and punchy around them. More continuous snow started at 7,100ft, easy to kick step in the soft snow. Steep scree field started at 7,500ft with some dirt paths. Not as steep as it looked like from down below, and the path revealed itself as you kept going. You could alternatively stay in the snow. Despite the generally soft snow condition, be aware of the icy patches in the shade and snow/rock transitions. Summit ridge was very corniced and postholey (to loose rocks) at the same time. 

Gear: water crossing shoes for the Copper Glance Creek. Ice ax on the summit ridge. Bug spray at the trailhead and lower elevation. Gaiters in the postholey snow. 

Carried but didn't use: snowshoes (stubborn minds would rather posthole … but the exposed rocks and tree branches in the snow also made snowshoeing less tempting), crampons (soft snow), helmet (tried to avoid walking directly above/below others' fall line on the scree field).

Mazama store: open until 6pm. ~1h drive on the way back. Apparently they close coffee at 4pm snd are likely run out of sandwiches by the time so gotta hurry up next time! 

Bullet point notes with more info in the blog post.

Trail is totally snow free! Woo! To the lake is easy. No real boot path that we found heading up to the craggies, but they can be scrambled almost entirely without snow besides a mellow snow field at the base of West Craggy. We went counterclockwise which was a great decision, because coming down snow for the last stretch was way more enjoyable than coming down 2000ft of talus, which is how descending Big Craggy will be.

Trail has lots of downed trees, a few within the first mile, then a clear stretch, and then a few within a mile of the lake.

The description is right, it's deceptively steep.

The bugs were starting to come out. We didn't get eaten alive, but I think in two weeks they'll be out in full force. Yikes.

Water over road past Honeymoon campground, but there was a sedan at the trailhead so apparently it's doable for most vehicles. Road is otherwise in good shape 

First bit of trail is along an old road bed. I spent some time sawing small blowdown, but there are several larger trees down. The initial crossing of Copper Glance Creek is a little sketchy - some of the logs are not at all stable, and the water is quite deep in spots. Soon after that I reached an old mine. The trail heads off to the left. The going was pleasant until the burned area above 6000'. Trail was obliterated in places, so I picked my way through burnt forest and snow patches. Turned north rather than crossing the creek again and gained the southeast ridge of Big Craggy. Started seeing boot and dog prints; someone was just an hour or so ahead of me (hope your ankle is ok, Jeff!) but I never caught up. No difficulties to the top, just steep forest and snow.

Next on the list was West Craggy. The route was a bit trickier than expected but I seem to have gone the right way. Will leave it for others to describe. There's a nice bootpath when you finally loop around to the mellow southwest side of the peak.

On the way back I stopped by Copper Glance Lake. Snow most of the way, but boots were sufficient.

Got back before dark and drove back down the road before stopping for the night. I like backpacking, but sleeping in the back of the truck has its charms!