Talapus and Olallie Lakes — Friday, Dec. 25, 2020

Arrived at 9am. There is a road closed sign at the pavement end, with the barriers spaced so you can drive through. We parked the 2wd at the closure and walked the road. AWD vehicles made it to the trailhead apparently easily. The road has intermittent packed snow/ice becoming covered with packed snow/ice by mile 2. Traction tires or AWD advised. The road added 3 miles each way,and microspikes were helpful. A hike on a quiet road in a snowy forest was quite pleasant. We took 1 hour to reach the trailhead and then adjusted our destination to Talapus instead of Olallie, given our bonus road miles. The first 0.1 mile at the trailhead is partially flooded with snowmelt but that was easily walked around. After that, the trail was covered in packed, crunchy snow and easily seen/navigated. I wore the microspikes the whole way, but the trail looked easily hiked with any good tread. We took another hour from trailhead to Talapus, snack break, then 1.5 hours to descend back to the car. Only a few other parties out in the morning, a few more (walking) as we were nearing the car.