We arrived at the Bagley Lakes parking area around 1:00 PM and were able to immediately find a parking spot near the trailhead and privy. It's not obviously marked but the Bagley Lakes Trail starts just to the left and slightly behind the privy. The parking area was about 3/4 full by the time we arrived-not bad for a beautiful holiday Monday.
Our outbound route started on what we later discovered was the Chain Lakes Trail, which runs along the west side of the lakes. The trail is in great shape aside from a little mud in places and offers grand views of the surrounding scenery. We followed the trail to a fork just past the second lake and decided to go left and descend into the rockfield below Table Mountain, thinking that the trail continued through the rockfield because we saw people walking there and seemingly ending up on the opposite side of the lake (thus creating the loop). Our determination turned out to be incorrect-we discovered that the trail peters out in the rockfield and you are left to your own devices to cross the rocks, creeks, and moss to get to the other side of the lake.
After crossing the rockfield, we started looking for any evidence of the trail on the other side. We eventually found a trail by watching people coming down into the rockfield from the other side. It turns out that the trail we found was the Fire and Ice Trail, which is a paved loop that starts at the Heather Meadows Visitors Center. After consulting a map, we refound the Bagley Lakes Trail and followed it along the east side of the lakes back to the parking area for our inbound route. The "official" trails we hiked were in great shape with no obstacles to speak of other than occasional mud. The trails are rocky and rooty so boots and poles are helpful. There are patches of wildflowers left and as previous reports have noted, blueberries are plentiful along the trail.
After our hike at Bagley Lakes, we decided to hike the short Artist Ridge trail at Artist Point. We arrived there around 4:30 and there were spots available in the parking lot. The trail is in good shape save for some mud in spots. We lingered a bit taking in the views-Shuksan and Baker were looking beautiful in the late afternoon sunlight. Altogether, we figured these two hikes to be about about 4 miles in total, given that we walked a little extra through the rockfield on the Bagley Lakes loop.
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