What an amazing Saturday, and an amazing hike! This is a great hike/snowshoe, the lakes are beautiful and in any weather this would be fun! The trail is well tracked by snowshoes, and is very easy to follow, although a foot of fresh snow might change that. My recommendation is to bring both shoe spikes and snowshoes as the lower sections are just hard packed snow and I didn't use the snowshoes until about mile 3.5, then they were absolutely necessary. Read the summer trail summary before hand as well, I didn't realize how steep it gets towards the end, also the snowshoe trail avoids the switchbacks and goes straight up the last 2-300 feet of elevation. I would also pay very close attention to avalanche danger, there are steep slopes all the way up the trail and it wouldn't take much to bury it - in all great hike, and I anticipate Ill be sleeping in the snow up here soon! - one more note as I look through photos, Please avoid walking across the lake, I know there are a ton of tracks across it but since it has been warm lately it is not totally frozen, I was able to dig my ski pole through with little effort in a few spots. There is an easy route to the left (east) side of surprise that takes you on to glacier lake.

Great day for a quick hike. Didn't have time to head up to the lake, but the quick trek to the creek was just what the doctor ordered. Hit the trail around 10:20 and crossed over the creek at 11:20. Non eventful trip. A few things to note. The turn to the trail head is spot on 10 miles from Skycomish before the Hwy 2 hair pin turn and just after the marked trail-head that read closed (01/21/17). We missed the turn and had to head up a couple miles before we found a good spot to turn around and come back to it. The route was fairly easy to follow on a clear day. The only thing to note is that the warmer weather caused large heavy snow chunks to fall out of the trees. Your instinct will be to look up, but don't, just duck and cover. You don't want to get hit in the head or face. Lastly, when you come to the second small creek crossing, you will pass over a log just in front of it. It's hard to see where the trail picks up across the small creek, but when you cross, you'll pick it up quickly just around the bend. Don't follow up the right side of the steep creek bed as it may appear your should. This is a nice little hike to the main creek. We will be back to make it up to the lake on another day. Have fun. Hope this helps.

Parking wasn't a problem, even on a sunny winter day, but we missed the parking lot the first time. We parked by a little village of rental cabins, about a quarter mile or so before the turn we needed to make for the trailhead. If you turn in and see cabins, get back out on Rte 2 and continue up to the next right turn. Follow the road and cross the train tracks, then turn right and you'll see the parking area. We went about halfway up the trail and turned around because the official description of the trail says it poses avalanche danger. We passed through a few avalanche fields anyway, but conditions were stable yesterday and the trail is short through these areas until where we turned around. I'm not really sure what it gets like further, as I've only ever been a couple miles up this trail. The snow is stunning, and gets deeper as you continue along the trail. The area where you cross the creek is really pretty. There are two trails, one route continues up the east side of the creek, and the other crosses the creek at two spots, one is the official creek crossing but it's seemed pretty unstable. The other is a few paces before the official crossing, and that's the one we chose--it seemed quite sturdy when we crossed.

We set off from the trailhead, which is currently just a plowed area near the RR tracks at Scenic along with 3 other parties who said they were headed to Surprise Lake and a parked truck. Snowshoe down the old road to the trailhead, which follows under the powerlines to the right and then left to the trail. At first the trail was well packed down with a combination of ski and snowshoe tracks. After the Surprise creek crossing area (3 options looked ok at the time) the track eventually became just us and a set of ski tracks. We continued up along the creek, keeping the creek to our right, at times following ski tracks and reached the beautiful lake in about 3.5 hours. We never saw the other parties from the trailhead after passing the ones who left before us. There were lots of tracks in the creek basin and it could be easy to get off-route if you don't know the topography you need to follow. We stayed in trees the whole time and avoided any paths heading up to the ski slopes (this is where the avalanche danger is). However, the valley is narrow and if avalanche activity was extreme it's possible that it would wipe out the center tree area so I wouldn't come here in those conditions. Avalanche risk was moderate and only for specific wind-loaded terrain so our path through the trees was quite safe this weekend. We set up camp on the lakeshore with a view of Slippery Slab tower, Thunder and Surprise to enjoy the lovely sunset. The pair of skiiers who made the tracks skiied past us, right across the center of the lake. We have a portable weather station and measured that it was 7f around 8pm. Bands of clouds passed throughout the night and the moon beamed. There was at least 5 feet of snow at the lake. Even after tamping down our campsite well I postholed when I took off my snowshoes until we really flattened it out, heh. I took a jaunt around the lake in the morning while it was still very cold. I was on the lake, but close to the shore and as I mentioned, it was really really cold and has been for quite a while. I doubt it's been above freezing here for at least a month and probably two. I mention this because I don't want someone to assume my tracks being there means that this route is safe in all conditions. It won't be. At the inlet stream I could see some open water so I gave that area wide berth on top of the rocks. We saw at least 7 parties on our way out today. The trail should be a highway now :)

It was a stunning day to try a new hike, although quite cold. My hiking partner and I had never done this trail before so we didn't really know what to expect besides what we had seen online. Luckily for about a quarter of the trail we didn't have to sift through much powder but as we got further along it got much deeper. We left the north side of the train tracks at 8:30am and finally got up to the lake at 1:30pm. The last mile was incredibly hard due to the fact that we were breaking trail in waist deep (at times) snow and going up a very steep incline. The trail was barely recognizable at some points, and we had to be careful at some creek crossings which made the going even slower. Poles are essential for feeling sink holes and extra balance. It was really cold around 10 degrees and at times the wind would pick up and then we were praying that a giant clump of snow wasn't going to fall on us from the trees above. (Some came a little too close for comfort) We only stayed at the lake for 15 minutes. Enough to take a couple pictures, eat some food and put warmer layers on. The wind was quite chilling up there, although the sunshine was nice. We left the top at 1:45pm and we arrived back at the car around 5:15. We could have gone faster but my partner had a knee that was giving her quite a bit of pain, which slowed us down quite a bit. We got back in enough time to not have to pull out our headlamps which was a plus. Anyone that is going up this week (or before the next big snow) will be able to do this trail much faster because we packed a nice trail all the way to the top. WARNING: my waterbottle froze shut and my partners camel back hose did as well. Luckily I had brought a thermos of hot tea that sustained us. Make sure you are prepared, this is quite the snow shoe, there is a lot that can go wrong when you are out that far. Snow shoes are essential. Through it all I am so happy we made it to the top. The lake is stunning and views are spectacular.