Constance Creek has bifurcated and shot a tributary down part of the lower third of the trail. Little snow on trail through first two-thirds. One or two avalanche tracks coming down from ''' somewhere up on the left cover the trail. (Never seen THAT before!) The creek valley above (where the trail leaves the creek and starts the final third to Lake) is a disaster area -- looks like someone rolled the Kingdome down from above. Routefinding in the final third is more tricky due to a few blow-downs, lots of downed limbs and branches. Most of the scrambling sections were snow-free, but wet. I was following the tracks of a party that wore crampons through here(!). Ice axe definitely required. Deep snow at Lake, but it was very firm, no postholing. Good firm snow up into Avalanche Valley, but it got junkier above about 6500' or so.

This is the steepest ""trail"" I have ever taken. I thought Mailbox peak was a steep trail. Hands down this is one tough trail. You realize this is a tough trail when the the trailhead sign says ""Lake Constance Route"" instead of ""Lake Constance Trail."" The ""trail"" goes up pretty fast for the first third, then slightly levels out for the next third, but watch out for the last third of this ""2 mile trail."" This is definitely scrambling. Keep your eyes out for the metal flags nailed to trees and you cannot miss the ""route."" You have been warned. When it seems you are off route, you are actually on route. The tough part is not going up but coming down. We eventually made it to Lake Constance and summitted Mt. Constance the next day. Snow started at about 4000 feet which is just at the apex of the tough part of the ""trail"" to the lake. The Lake was still frozen over with about 3 feet of snow all around. The ""trail"" was in pretty good shape up to the last third--but then again, there really is no way to improve that last third. See you on the trails!

Entrance closed 1/2 mile from trailhead. Plenty of parking. First mile is snow free, extremely steep, poor route, route markers hard to find. 2000' elevation gain. Smoked our ass! Next 1400' trail very poorly marked, route finding extremely difficult, not for the average day hiker more of a moutaineers scramble. Lake looks nice, ran out. IT HURT! ENJOY!

Just back from a lovely trip to lake Constance. The trail is snow-free all the way up (and indeed, beyond and into avalanche canyon). Beautiful sunny Saturday, then snow falling late Sunday morning on. The lake is about half frozen. Two things to note: 1.The gate at the National park boundary (on the Dosewallips road) is locked, but this adds only about a half mile to the hike But get this - they locked us out of the park, but they still want us to pay!! Hmmm.... 2. There's a section about two thirds of the way up to the lake where you can either go right which takes you directly through the streambed for a ways or you can go left which bypasses this bit by going steeply up to rejoin the trail higher up. Someone (I'm guessing it's the NPS) put up a bunch of flagging tape with the apparent intention of having trail users choose the right-hand option, but it's obvious that a lot of people have chosen to go the other way, and with good reason. The right-hand way (in the creek) is fine in the summer months when the water is low, but this time of year you'll actually be climbing up rocks with part of the creek flow going over them, and they are Very slimy and slippery, so you're sure to get wet and likely to slip and get hurt. I recommend the left-hand (steeper at first, but there's lots more like it up ahead, so get used to it) option. All in all a very nice weekend for us!