Hiked Rachel Lake and Alta Sunday morning 6/22.
Arrived at the trailhead at 8:00am. There were 6 cars or so in the parking lot. There were also two fairly clean pit toilets available.
The trail to Rachel Lake was beautiful and pretty uneventful. We lost the trail a few times, but quickly got back on track. The trail is quite wet, 10+ stream crossings and some sections that walk along/in a small stream. Despite my best efforts my feet ended up getting wet. Extremely intermittent slushy snow started right before getting to Rachel Lake, but didn’t pose any issues. I used trekking poles but didn’t use any traction.
The trail up to rampart ridge is in good shape with a decent amount of snow right as you crest the ridge. From here we followed the sign right towards Lilan Lake. Initially we missed the left turn off to go up to Alta Mountain and had to back track. I built a small cairn since the WTA description mentioned a cairn marks this turn off.
From here to the peak there were a few unproblematic snow crossings and lots of false summits. The trail was more exposed than I expected which added to some of the fun/excitement.
Total time car to car was 7 hours 15 minutes.
Despite fog obscuring views for the majority of the day we had a great time.
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