Snow at the trailhead at 2200 feet, deepening steadily to Surprise Lake. Avalanche chutes along trail have very little snow, as yet, and would seem to pose limited risk. Solid bootrack all the way to Surprise Lake - which was covered by a pristine layer of new snow. After eating lunch, donned snowshoes and headed up the valley to Glacier Lake. Some nice views of Spark Plug Mtn from Glacier Lake. More than a foot of fresh powder in the upper meadows. Snowshoes unecessary below Surprise Lake.

In general, moderately firm crust. Occasional deep postholing likely above ~3600 ft. unless you're on snowshoes. Upper trail (in snow) pretty well travelled, but can be a bit confusing beginning at base of the switchbacks. All forks seem to lead to lake. Great sounding stream.

Our group of 7 headed up Highway 2 for a snowshoe trip up Surprize Creek near Scenic. We parked on the road that leads to the WSDOT sand pile for snowsplow trucks and the BNSF Railroad crossing. With new snow we could not drive across the tracks to park, so put on our snowshoes and started up the summer road to the trailhead. There were no tracks from past snowshoers, so made our own as we went up the hill under the BPA powerlines to the real trail and into the old growth forest. The snow got deeper as we progressed up to the large log creek crossing. We found some snow bidges to cross smaller streams with deep gullies along the way. Past the Surprize Creek crossing the group took turns leading while breaking trail. About 1/2 mile short of where we had planned to stop for lunch and turn around, one member of the party has his snowshow binding break where a metal rod goes under the boot. Fortunately another person in our group had some plastic wire wraps that could be used for emergency repair. They held the binding together for the trip out. We even saw some blue sky and a little sun on this day in the Alpine Lake Wilderness.

A beautiful trail on a sunny winters Sunday, and we had the trail to ourselves. At this time of the year, you park just across the rail road at Scenic. Don your snow shoes by the sign pointing to the trail head and off you go. Even at the trail head the snow is several feet deep. With no significant snow fall recently the path of prior snow shoers is easy to follow. You head up the valley following the stream most of the way following the summer route mostly. Around 2700' we crossed to the East side of the stream over a downed log with orange streamer. Rather than following the summer trail with switch backs at the steeper part of the valley, people have headed straight up the valley. We followed suit and it is a steep climb for the last 1000 ft. You do need snow shoes with crampons to get up this bit. We took about an hour to get up this section, and came down it in 15 mins! The lake is almost frozen over and beautiful. A great place for lunch. We took 3 hours up and 2h:15m hours back.

The snowshoe trek to Surprise was awesome and sucessful. Don't even try this without preparation and compass skills. Trail up to 3000' is hard packed and beyond is steep and deep. Numerous snow bridges to cross. Defiantly Backcountry and Rewarding. Though if we took the club I’d swear they would have mutinied or kicked us out of the club. 3 hrs up and 2 back with an hour for lunch. Elevation started at 2300’ and high point of 4500’ at the lake 4 miles one way. Trail was straight up for the last .5 mile in 10’ of snow. Luckily, one other insane trekker knew the way so we followed his trail- or we would never in a million years have found this place without Orienting skills. Still one of the most beautiful places we’d ever gone too- do it on a sunny day. The doggie is still recovering as are his parents.