See additional links below for more trip photos.

Due to a higher chance of snowfall in the mountains on Christmas Day, we postponed our trip to today. Road was drivable and I parked on the south side of the railroad tracks to start the hike. I was excited to see day-old ski tracks on the trail like last year. That usually translated to less postholing and a higher probability of getting to the lake.

At the log crossing ski tracks continued on the summer trail, and snow had been packed down enough to keep hiking in boots with microspikes for balance. I finally put on snowshoes after reentering the forest past the last talus field.

Tracks ended slightly above starting of the steep terrain at 3,800'. Surprise Creek being an earshot away meant that we were smack in the middle of the basin, and we needed to avoid the giant boulders straight ahead.

While trying to figure out a way to negotiate snow-covered boulders, I spotted a faint path farther left in the basin. It appeared to be heading in the direction of the summer trail, so we backtracked down a bit to get to it. Covered in the latest snowfall, the path served as navigation rather than keeping us from postholing.

The path eventually dwindled at 4,200' as we continued to break trail and posthole. Laboriously we powered through the last few hundred feet into the lake basin with more fresh snow awaited. Continuing in the direction of the summer trail, we found a good place to cross the stream east of the lake and reached the lake's outlet.

Weather was nearly identical to what we got last year, full of sunshine and windless during the entire stay by ourselves. A dozen intrepid Gray Jays within close proximity kept us company while begging for food.

We enjoyed one hour of warmth and relaxation by the outlet before heading out. A few pairs of snowshoe tracks looked to have turned around at the bottom of the steep slopes. Our tracks should still be in good shape to follow, assuming no snowfall is to be expected in the next few days.

Gear: microspikes, snowshoes

My fiance and I set out to do this hike on Saturday the 9th because the weather was looking to be excellent, and on the drive to the trail head, we didn't see any snow along Stevens Pass. Because of this, and how clear the parking lot was when we arrived, we decided to ditch the snowshoes and leave them in the truck, thinking micro spikes would be enough. We were wrong. We hiked for two hours and ended up turning around because we were post holing so bad in our micro spikes and our dogs that have thin hair were frozen. The blue heeler was fine because she has enough hair to stay warm. We decided to head back home and come back tomorrow with snowshoes to try to get to the lake. 

Fast forward to the next day! We woke up early and made it to the trail head by 8:30am. We parked a little ways from the actual trail head because we didn't want to get stuck behind a train after reading one of the previous trip reports where a car had to wait for 3 hours for the train to pass before they could leave. We brought snowshoes this time and had a much easier time getting to the point where we had to stop the previous day. However, we reached a point where there was no longer a trail, because it looked like the people before us had gotten fed up with trying to break trail, because it's exhausting. My fiance broke the trail ahead of me and I tried to make it wider as we went. We took two wrong turns because the trail was not visible at all and was covered with about three feet of snow. If you are following our trail, the first time our trail "Ys" you should stay right and follow the same elevation around a vine maple that is low hanging over the trail. The second time you see a Y with our footprints, stay left and go uphill. You switchback your way up and make the final awful climb to the lake. You will need to cross some boulder fields and pay attention to where the tree wells and other possible falling through hazards are, because I definitely fell in a tree well and it could have ended up being very bad for me if my ankle had turned all the way around like it was looking like it was going to.  

It took us four hours to get there, but we made it to the lake by noon. We sat down, had some coffee and lunch, and only hung around for about a half an hour because we were worried about running out of daylight and our dog was getting cold. The post holing was really hard for her because she's a blue heeler and pretty low to the ground. We left our other two dogs at home because of how difficult the terrain was the previous day, and it was even worse the second day breaking trail. 

It took us 4 hours to get up and 2 hours to get back down. You can move pretty quickly when the trail is already broken! :) We made it all nice for the next person who wants to head up, but just pay attention to the two wrong turns that we made and don't make the same mistakes we did. 

Happy hiking! :) 

Hiked/snowshoed up to Surprise Lake today. The trail is snow-free up to about 2800 feet, then snow from then on up to the Lake (at 4500 feet). The snow was packed and solid around trees and along the trail where people have walked. The open sections, especially up by the lake still have lots of snow, which was very wet and slidy in the sunshine. The lake itself is just starting to melt with a handful of translucent blue patches around the edges.

The middle section of the hike is pretty steep, making it a challenge to get up and slippy going down.

The creek was running quite high with the meltwater, but no problems to cross. It has a constant series of waterfalls and rapids and runs right beside the trail. Very pretty.

Surprisingly I had the entire trail to myself today. No other cars at the trailhead and didn't see anyone going up or coming down.

Wanting to get out and get some exercise, Steve and I decided on Surprise Lake, with its fairly level approach upward along Surprise Creek. We started out in light snow (about 31°F) from Scenic about 0900 and reached the lake 3.5 hours later. Thanks to some who went up earlier, the route was nicely set in snow all the way. With recent warmer temps and higher freezing level, the snow was quite consolidated, even off the trail route. Micro-spikes came in handy on the compacted route, and for us snowshoes were not needed. But many wore snowshoes and they were more useful nearing the lake from above 4000'. Our thermometer read 18°F at the lake; so it was quite cool with a slight breeze and continual snowfall. We departed down after taking a quick lunch break and taking in the lake panorama, arriving at the trail head two hours later.

I've hiked this trail twice before, once with a WTA work party which stopped around two miles to clear brush, and once with higher avalanche danger, so turned around in approximately the same place. This time my hiking partner had a time constraint so we turned around at about three miles. The snow was several feet deep, packed solid and crisp on the trail, with a few inches of fresh, powdery accumulation on top. We took traction, poles, and snowshoes, but only needed our poles up to where we turned around. Nonetheless, take all your gear because conditions change quickly. Winter views are lovely all along the trail (even under the power line if you can stand the buzzing), and there have never been many other hikers in my experience, so solitude factor is good. Parking doesn't require a pass, and there's not a huge lot but it's never been full when I've been there.