Lake Stuart — Thursday, May. 16, 2024

Our party of three camped at Lake Stuart for two nights on May 16th and 17th (Thursday & Friday). The forest service has opened the gate to FS 7601 and the road is clear of snow all the way to the trailhead for Stuart Lake Trail. The trail is covered with snow/ice on portions of the upper half, but did not require snowshoes (microspikes could be useful, but we didn’t use those even though we had them). The campsites at the lake were surprisingly all melted out, so we were glad that we didn’t have to pitch our tents on snow. Both nights were below freezing and the first night had intermittent gale force winds with an inch of new snow on the ground in the morning. The trail is in fairly good shape, but there are some mud patches, as well as multiple trees down over the trail, but we had no problems navigating under, over, or around them.