I hiked to Rachel and Rampart Lakes on last Friday, 10/25.
The road to the TH is in excellent condition, when I pulled up at 8:30am in the morning, there were only 1 other car there.
The first part of the Trail was relatively flat, exactly 2.7 miles.
but 5-6 creek/ water crossing, only 1 being little bit tricky; since everything was frozen that morning. 3 tree log crossing.
The forest looked very much dead in the morning, everything was frozen.
It was very eerie, since I was walking alone through this frozen forest.
From 2.7 mile mark, the trail starts gaining elevation to the Rachel Lake. the whole section was muddy and you need to climb through the Roots and rocks.
Very much fun, especially considering the first part is very much boring.
The snow started near the Rachel Lake, and after that its pretty much consistent in rest of the Trail.
The snow level is not too deep, easily walkable but little bit slippery.
There was a pond near the Rachel Lake, was completely frozen that morning!
I climbed up the Rampart ridge and tried to survive the blast of cold wind up there. It was freezing and there were snow throughout up that ridge.
Pretty cool to see that there were icicles forming in the soil.
I was struggling to cope up with the cold freezing wind and did not wanna walk all the way to Rampart Lakes;
called it off from 0/5 miles away from the Lakes.
The weather got better later in the afternoon though, the Sun came out and the wind slowed down. Unfortunately, by then I am almost back to the parking Lot.
Saw only 2 people while going to the Lakes in the morning, and another 25 while returning.
Came back to the Parking Lot at 2 pm; there were 10+ cars in the lot.
Pretty good hike in my opinion, 9.4 miles with 2520 ft gain.
Not crowded at all, that's a big green flag for me LOL!
Definitely, gonna come back again in summer.
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