Glacier Basin, Emmons Moraine — Friday, Jun. 28, 2024

All blue skies on the Glacier Basin and Emmons Moraine trail today. We arrived at the campgrounds at 7:30 a.m. All Trails put our total hiking distance at 9.58 miles with 2,244 ft elevation gain. We went past the meadows until the incline got a little crazy with loose rock and steepness. If you just want to see some cool sights, then hit the Emmons Moraine trail and then the Glacier Basin trail until the snow. The large sections of snow are easy to get up. There are kicked in steps or nice gritty dirty snow that is helpful for traction, but coming down is work. It's slippery as heck. Views go on for days before the snow, so you are not missing out. Early spring flowers are blooming with yellow avalanche lillies and violas and I think heather? It's so dang pretty. With all that pretty comes the bugs. We didn't need bug spray, but that time is coming real soon. I do not recommend the Emmons Moraine trail if you have squirrely kids. There are narrow, rocky sections of the trail that require moving with care. We saw a marmot dining in a sea of avalanche lillies and a bunch of darting chipmunks that weren't scared of humans at all. It was my first time on the trail and I'll be back for sure. I loved it so much. The snow made it more challenging, but even without the snow, I'd consider this a real hike that requires shoes with good traction, water, sunscreen, snacks, layers, bug spray, hiking poles if you have knee/balance issues or just love your poles. On our way back we yielded to a lot of people who could have been walking around Seattle taking in the sights and not on a challenging hike. Also, at the lot, it looked like the rangers were preparing to ticket cars parked where the signs told them not to. Cars were parked EVERYWHERE. Yikes.