4.5 mile circumnavigation of Mountain Lake in Moran State Park, Orcas Island.

Beautiful water views during entire hike.

Made a long "highlights" loop from the Cascade Lake day use area. Hiked up to Mount Constitution, down to Twin Lakes, along the east side of Mountain Lake, and then along the Falls trail before heading back to Cascade Lake. Got started around 10:30am and ended around 4pm with an hour at the top of Mt. Constitution for lunch. It was a really great way to experience all of the different landscapes within the park without using a car and while largely avoiding crowds. I only encountered 3 other people on the way up to Cold Spring - obviously around Cold Spring and Mount Constitution there were a lot more groups and families. Things were relatively quiet again heading down to and around the Twin Lakes. The Mountain Lake loop was an absolutely gorgeous rolling lakeshore trail, pretty popular with folks with dogs. I had the creekside trail from Mountain Lake to Cascade Falls to myself until hitting the falls themselves. All of the trails were in good condition and nice and shady on a warm sunny day. 

Every year at the end of March my partner and I go out to Orcas for a weekend of camping, hiking and relaxing. We sometimes try to mix up the hikes / adventures that we do, so we opted this year to do Twin Lakes > Mount Pickett with a detour down towards the beach (I couldn't find a name of this trail, but you would see it pretty clearly on the map - I also included a map of our rough route highlighted)

First comment - things have changed at Orcas over the last year! The camping in Moran is now reservations required even in March and they have nice maps that they hand out. They also seem to have replaced a bunch of the trail signs. Obviously happy for them to be getting more people coming through, but it did make our quiet weekend away a little busier!

Now for the details..

We did the hike starting around Mountain Lake and heading over to Twin Lakes. The parking is no issue by Mountain Lake (Discovery Pass required). The trail is in great condition all the way past Twin Lakes. After Twin Lakes, we took the trail down towards the water, and it was here that it got a little bit hairier. There were a fair amount of blowdowns across the trail and a couple of times where the trail was actually pretty hard to navigate. It is also VERY steep! 

After dropping down towards the beach, we came back up to Mt Pickett. To those that haven't done Mt Pickett, don't anticipate any views! It's just a blip as you walk along a trail / forest road.

All in all our route worked out to just about 9 miles, 2500 ft vert, 3.5 hours. Nice little hike for a Saturday before settling down at a campsite :)

Mountain Lake is beautiful any time of year! Trail is in good condition. Not even very wet or muddy after all the rain. Very few people around on this Sunday afternoon.

If you don't have a Discover Pass you can buy one at the automated pay station at Cascade Lake.

A beautiful Saturday hike. Hiked around Mountain Lake and took a side trip up to Twin Lakes. Trail is in excellent condition. Lots of parking at the trailhead (don't forget your Discover Pass!) and bathrooms were in good shape too. Relatively easy trail with one section that was a little steep - I went around clockwise and the steep part was about 2/3 of the way around. Gorgeous views of the lake, can't wait to bring my kayak.

Side note: I was camping at Moran State Park all weekend and kudos to that park! Bathrooms were impeccably clean, campsite was beautiful, firewood was easily available. Overall a fantastic weekend.