Heart Lake via Lily Basin Trail — Saturday, Sep. 21, 2024

Parking/Road: lovey forest road with parking along the side of the gravel road but wasn’t an issue because we were one of 4 cars there.

This trail is such a lovely gradually graded trail with loads of reward. You’re in the trees on the ridge line for the first 3ish miles. Then you start to get peekaboo views and eventually you get up high enough that it opens up. You’ve got great views of Rainier and Packwood lake. We started to turn and weave our way around the mtns and then headed down towards heart lake where we set up camp just above the lake. After dropping packs, we headed back up to Hawkeye point. This was a bit steeper of a trail but great views the whole time. When you hit the saddle you can see Helen’s, Adam’s, Rainier and Hood on a clear day. Then we took the junction up to Hawkeye point and got views of the lake below. Most people were camped on the other side near goat lake or snow grass flats but we had heart lake all to ourselves. It’s was amazing.

Tracked 11.5 on Saturday (trailhead to heart lake to Hawkeye and back to hear) with 4500 gain. And 7.8 back to the car Sunday!

A beautiful day in Washington! How lucky were we!