Beautiful hike and encountered only one other party. We took snowshoes but did not end up using them. Hiking poles helped on the way down, but not required. It lightly snowed the whole way, although you are protected in the trees for much of the hike.  We didn't make it all the way to the lake-next time!

Went up the surprise lake route for a few miles with kids. The snow is not very dee for this time of the year. 2” up to around 5” when we turned around.

It is beautiful out there with a lot of old growth trees. The trail is well stepped in and was pretty easy for footing.

This trip report was moved to "Surprise and Glacier Lakes."

Arrived at 9:30. Fine weather, temp in the 40s. (And empty parking lot.) The snow is slushy, and the footing varies a lot over the first half of the hike. There are deep patches alternating with bare ground and stairs, every 30 yards or so. I settled for spikes, but someone ahead of me kept their snowshoes on the whole way. A rotted tree is down over a narrow creek crossing, with a mess of broken branches everywhere. And there are two other water crossings, both with log bridges. For the first, the log has an icy snow cap that no one has walked across. The tracks lead down the bank and through the water. It’s just a few steps. The second crossing is much wider, and the water too deep to walk through. The snow on the log is pretty well tramped down, but it did shift a bit underfoot, and there are no handholds.

Out from the tree covering the snow is deeper and there are no more bare patches. I switched to snowshoes but I did see people trudging through in boots when I made my way back. The river is flowing and the snow is sculpted out beautifully. The sun came out for a nice show of light and shadow on the hillsides. There are rollerballs piled up at the bottom. And lots of whistling back and forth in the trees. I followed another set of tracks that seemed to stick mostly to the summer trail, but then went off in the trees and stopped before reaching the lake. This was about 3 hours in. I tried some bushwhacking but didn’t have a GPS and decided to turned back. I passed three other parties on their way in. Took 2 hours to reach the parking lot.

rrived at 9:30. Fine weather, temp in the 40s. (And empty parking lot.) The snow is slushy, and the footing varies a lot over the first half of the hike. There are deep patches alternating with bare ground and stairs, every 30 yards or so. I settled for spikes, but someone ahead of me kept their snowshoes on the whole way. A rotted tree is down over a narrow creek crossing, with a mess of broken branches everywhere. And there are two other water crossings, both with log bridges. For the first, the log has an icy snow cap that no one has walked across. The tracks lead down the bank and through the water. It’s just a few steps. The second crossing is much wider, and the water too deep to walk through. The snow on the log is pretty well tramped down, but it did shift a bit underfoot, and there are no handholds.

Out from the tree covering the snow is deeper and there are no more bare patches. I switched to snowshoes but I did see people trudging through in boots when I made my way back. The river is flowing and the snow is sculpted out beautifully. The sun came out for a nice show of light and shadow on the hillsides. There are rollerballs piled up at the bottom. And lots of whistling back and forth in the trees. I followed another set of tracks that seemed to stick mostly to the summer trail, but then went off in the trees and stopped before reaching the lake. This was about 3 hours in. I tried some bushwhacking but didn’t have a GPS and decided to turned back. I passed three other parties on their way in. Took 2 hours to reach the parking lot.