Lake 22 — Friday, Apr. 4, 2025

Road to the trailhead was perfectly clear. Be prepared to lose cell service and have a offline map ready.

Overall trail was in great condition. Definitely very wet given the many creeks and streams and a few fallen trees to climb or duck under but nothing too difficult. Weather was great and the views of all of the mountains were beautiful and clear.

Snow started at around 2.25ish mile mark (about a quarter mile from the Lake) and we switched to microspikes. First time using these as a new PNW resident and they were phenomenal. The lake area was full of snow on all sides. We debated doing the loop around and decided to complete after seeing other ppl do it. For the most part the lake loop trail is clearly marked by other footsteps which is nice. The snow was really rough on the side closed to the mountains and we even heard one avalanche boom noise which caused us to panic a little but nothing happened.

Overall one of my favorite hikes I’ve done in Washington so far. Spikes not necessary per-say but an absolute game changer. Low Avalanche risk when we went but obviously exercise caution.

Question for others-
- There were some small patches of rock/trail in the snowy trail, is it okay to keep your spikes on for a few steps on the rocks? The noise it makes is not pleasant but it didn’t seem to damage them.
- Is that Avalanche boom noise a big concern? What should you even do in that situation. We seemed to speed up which caused us to trip a bit more in the thick snow.
- Does anyone know what all of the peaks you can see from the trail are? :)