Cooney Lake, Martin Creek & Eagle Lakes — Wednesday, Jun. 3, 2020

  Hiked up to Cooney Lake for an overnight, via part of Eagle Lakes trail and Martin Creek trail.  The trail is mostly in good shape, with a few downed trees before the Martin Lakes turnoff, and a few after that.  Patchy snow started around 5800', became pretty continuous on the climb after crossing the stream draining Martin Lakes.  Cooney Lake is frozen over, and surroundings completely snow covered.  We found an almost bare spot to camp on by the horse camp a little before the lake.  Snow was pretty variable; soft with postholing in sunny or shallow snowpack areas, fairly firm in the woods, and quite hard in the open areas around the lake after a sub-freezing night.  We used poles throughout, and ice axes in the early morning on a short steeper slope.  I climbed up to the saddle west of the lake (south of Martin Peak) in the morning and an ice axe was very helpful, crampons could have been handy early in the morning before the sun softened things up, but I was OK with boots and pole and ice axe.  The Eagle Lakes creek crossing was only a bit above the ankles, but long (30'?) and cold.

  I hadn't realized (or even entertained the possibility) that these trails were used by motorcycles, so the tire tracks were a bit of a surprise!  The trail was definitely rutted by them, and many water bars filled with eroded sand.  But they may have cleared a number of the downed trees up to about 6000'.  And luckily we had the trail to ourselves for the most part - roaring motorcycles would be quite a different experience.  Only saw 2 people, one day hiker low down on the first day, and a peak bagger low down on the second day.

  There were very nice flowers on the lower part of the trail (~2 miles), with lots blooming on the exposed rocky stretches.  Various mustards, penstemons, Lomatiums, paintbrush, saxifrages, larkspurs etc.  Just a couple of a large number of Lewisias were starting to bloom on a glaciated rock outcrop beyond the Crater Creek junction.  Spring beauties and yellow Erythronium lilies blooming all over between the snow patches in the basin below Martin Peak.  Didn't see much wildlife at all, and it was pretty quiet throughout.  Did see one large pile of bear poop that appeared overnight around 6100', and a fair number of fresh deer and some elk prints.