We didn't make it to the lake but got to about 3750ft and had a wonderful time out in all the snow. We parked just on the other side of the tracks and snowshoed in to the TH. We headed up a little after 9am and returned back to the car at 3pm. There is no trail to follow once you leave the creek and head up (about 3 miles in ) so be prepared to navigate from there. There was a little bit of flagging, but I don't know if it goes all the way to the lake. More pictures and details linked below.

I like exploring topographic maps to see if I can find new objectives that are rarely visited, preferably even in summer, to do in winter. The most fun trips I've done are those strange adventures, for example Big Snow via Gold Lake, Tank Lakes, Minotaur Lake, Hatchery Creek, and a couple of Snowgrass attempts. I like the adventurous aspect of exploring such remote and quiet areas in winter. Via old trip reports on NWHikers I learned about Mac Peak, which is certainly on my list for summer, but while looking at the map I got the idea to do it in winter also. Mac Peak is fabulous mountain very central in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, very close to Mt Daniel. It is the highest peak in this area, and given the proximity to Mt. Daniel I was expecting gorgeous views. In summer, Mac Peak is usually done from the Tonga Ridge, which brings you a lot closer in terms of distance. That's not an option for winter though. The two options for a winter day trip would be Deception Creek or Surprise Creek. With the Surprise Gap option, you loose 800ft down from Surprise Gap to Deception Lakes, but this route has the benefit of not having parking trouble (if there is snow at that level), it has some fallback optiosn (like Surprise Mountain), and perhaps has less risk of creek crossing trouble. The Surprise Creek route does introduce more avalanche risk (Deception Creek has virtually none on the approach), but it is not more risky than the common snowshoe trips to Surprise or Lighting already do. I haven't been able to find any report for a winter trip to Mac Peak(but it's not super hard, so it's perhaps likely that is has done before). For yesterday, I considered the conditions finally good enough to attempt this, with moderate avalanche risk (more on that later), and I expected snow to be fairly compact, except the foot of snow that came done recently (this top layer did make the trip more energy consuming than I hoped). I expected a long day, so I started with first daylight at 6am. The road is a bit rough, but it's very short. Snow coverage started pretty soon on the trail (sooner than I expected based on my recent Ruby attempt), but the section to the point where the summer trail crosses the creek is compact snow and can easily be done without snowshoes. I did not see any tracks on the summer trail at the other side of the creek and followed the winter route (to be honest I don't really understand why the winter route is considered safer: both routes cross a generous number of avalanche paths). There were vague tracks until Surprise Lake, and given how quickly tracks were melting away, those must have been from Friday or Thursday. The avalanche paths along the creek did not have a lot of snow. Of course, the avalanches into this area would come from way above, but given the lack of snow, these areas looked safe to me, in particular so early in the morning. The climb up to Surprise Lake was pleasantly steep, and we reached Surprise Lake at 8:30am. I'm normally not one to venture out on lakes, but I had planned a nice route to also visit Glacier Lake, so I decided to follow the edge of the lake to the inlet, and then climb up to the Glacier Lake outlet. This was a very nice route, and I enjoyed Glacier Lake. We arrived at Glacier Lake around 9:15. We followed the edge for a bit and then climbed up to the summer trail. Now the next challenge was Surprise Gap. I expected to see evidence of previous avalanches, and I realized that today it would not be 100% safe (moderate risk with emphasis on loose wet and cornice failures). We arrived at the bottom of the gap at 10am, which I considered a safer time. I was planning to pick a track on the slope at the climber's left (Lightning), to be safer for cornice failures on the sun-lit climber's right (Surprise Mountain). This turned out to be a most excellent idea, because just as I started, to my shock a large avalanche came down the biggest gully of Surprise Mountain, I suspect caused by a cornice failure. While I certainly didn't think avalanches were ruled out today (when are they?), this came as a surprise to me at 10am. Even more surprising, the size of this one was most impressive compared to anything that previously came down. Contemplating what to do, I decided to proceed quickly the remaining climb up the gap, according to the original plan to stay on the safer slope. This incident was definitely outside of my comfort zone though, and next time I go to this area I would want safer conditions than today. At the top of the gap (10:40 am), we took a long break and enjoyed the views towards Cathedral Rock, Mt Daniel, and north towards Glacier Peak. I started thinking about the return trip, and briefly re-considered returning via Deception Creek. I had previously ruled out such a loop due to risk of getting stuck (nobody has been there yet this spring). I stuck to my original decision on ruling this out, which is always a good idea. The descend to Deception Lakes was enjoyable. The upper section is not as steep as it seemed to me on the map, and the lower forest is nice. Snow got a bit more slushy here due to sun exposure (11:30 at Deception Lakes). I continued to trust my snowshoes to cross the lake on the small channel in the middle. The slopes up Mac Peak are just awesome for snowshoeing. There are no steep or exposed sections if you follow the proper route. I followed a gully to the first flatter area about 5300ft, and then the climber's right via an obvious broad ramp to the tarn area at 5700ft. From here, the slopes are mostly open, and the snow does get a bit steeper. The views are improving all the time, and are simply stunning. I decided before the trip that I was not comfortable with following the bottom of the large gully up the mountain. I expected the snow to be very wet, and didn't want to get hit by loose wet coming down there. In retrospect, I think that may have been unnecessarily conservative and it prevented me from reaching the summit. Anyway, I staid in the obviously safe area and headed straight to the SW ridge of Mac Peak. There are some steep parts here, but there are some trees in the steepest sections, and being north-facing the snow was even a bit icy still. We reached the tip of the SW ridge at 1:05 am. There is about 600ft left to the summit from here, and with a turn-around time of 2am I was delighted that I should be able to make it. We took a break to enjoy the views, but when we packed up to continue I learned that right beyond this point the ridge get uncomfortably narrow. On the left, it was pretty steep down, and on the right, there was a fairly sizable cornice. I immediately said to my dog: well, we're not gonna do that. For me, it's best to stick to my first instinct on risk (I'm actually a bit afraid of heights, which helps staying alive), and I thought the views were quite fantastic as is already, so we took a longer break before turning back. The trip back was smooth (back at Deception Lakes at 2:30pm, at the gap 3:20pm, at Glacier Lake at 4pm, Surprise Lake at 4:50, and back at the car at 7pm). Small personal note, just in case it helps anybody else: it might seem silly, but I was a bit frustrated by recent hikes where I turned around early, feeling that I ran out of energy (Ruby, for example). I'm fairly certain now that I just wasn't eating enough during the day. I adjusted my breaks and food for this trip, and I'm pretty sure that did the trick. I actually ran out of food (which is surprising given how heavy I pack) and the section from Surprise Lake back to the car was noticeably heavier for me. Statistics: 15 miles, 5700ft gain.

Having been to Surprise lake in January, Randy and I decided to do it again, taking others interested in getting a good workout. So there were four of us departing Scenic in a snow-free parking area. We packed up the snowshoes, hiked the visible trail with icy puncheon and finally were able to put on the snowshoes after 1.5 hours of leaving the trailhead; elevation 2754'. We then continued up west of Surprise creek following GPS waypoints from our previous trip as there were no tracks to follow. At 3340' Ron decided to wait in some trees, between avalanche slopes, because of exhaustion from continued post-holing. Gail, Randy and I continued on through many previous avalanches debris slopes and then up the very steep, treed slope to the ridge by the lake. We got to the lake at 1300 in high winds and blowing snow. After finding a sheltered area we had a quick lunch and headed back down. We got back to Ron, who patiently waited for 3.5 hours but was beginning to worry since I had told him only two hours. A couple of walkie-talkies might have come in handy! No cell service out here. We all continued down in difficult, softening snow, crossing steep and slippery slopes. My temperature gauge read 35°F. We had blue sky going up but now it was threatening to rain. Despite a few light showers along the route we reached the parked vehicle totally dry at 1645. It hovered above freezing most of the day but the wind made it bitterly cold at the lake. Take plenty of extra clothes, trekking poles, good water-proof boots along with the snowshoes. The icy parts of the exposed trail were difficult as we did not have traction devices. Recommend wearing traction devices until putting on the snowshoes.

Initially, I was going to hike Eagle Lake Fishermans Trail today, but the road was closed due to logging. Didn't find out till I was almost to the trailhead, so I got a late start on this hike... The parking area is a little tricky to find, its the first road to the South once you pass the Iron Goat Interpretive Center, but there was plenty of parking in a slightly icy parking lot...4 wheel drive was nice, but not needed. There was light snow falling, and about 4-6" of fresh snow on the trail. I started up around noon and was the first to break trail, in fact I didn't see any other people on the trail. Perfect! Snow conditions were good, pretty easy going with snowshoes on the trail, if you strayed off it was a little deep and soft but still manageable with a little more effort. Theres a few creek crossings that are a challenge due to steep approaches. The trail was easy to follow, always a good idea to bring a map and compass but I didn't really need it for wayfinding. I didn't get all the way to the lakes due to my late start, ate lunch around 2 miles in and came back out. The Ranger at the Skykomish Ranger Station had mentioned that the avalanche danger was Considerable past that point today so probably a good turn around anyway.... Overall, this is a great out of the way, lightly used trail for snowshoeing. Only drawback is most of it is heavily wooded, so not a lot of views.