We got an early start and hit up Rachel and Rampart Lakes this morning — a hike that's been on my list forever but I've never gotten around to!
THE ROAD / PARKING
The road to the trailhead is in decent shape. Once you're on the gravel forest road, it's relatively slow moving, but should be no issue for cars of any clearance.
We got to the trailhead around 7:15 this Saturday morning. The upper parking lot was already full, which we assumed was mainly overnighters from the previous night. The lower lot was nearly empty. When we returned around 1:30, both lots were full, and there were cars parked down the road.
THE TRAIL
The trail is overall in alright shape overall, with a couple of blowdowns that were easy to navigate over.
However, the trail is quite rooty and rocky in many places by nature, and is also difficult to follow sometimes because of how many social trails there are. We had to pull out Gaia at various points to figure out exactly where we were, and whether or not we were on the trail. We did lose our way at one point near Rampart Lakes and had to find our way back. We also encountered multiple groups throughout the day that lost the trail as well.
Some of the water crossings (and there were many in the first half of the hike) took a little extra focus/balance — a couple had slightly slippery or narrow log crossings. Watch your step!
As others have commented on before, the route to Rachel Lake is quite mild until about a mile before the lake, then the elevation really ramps up all the way to the lake. The climbing continues for a short while until you reach the junction with the Rampart Lakes/Lila Lake trail, after which it levels out until you reach Rampart Lakes.
Bugs were somewhat there at the lakes, though it wasn't bad. I got one mosquito bite at Rachel Lake, but that's because I'm a mosquito magnet.
MISC.
Huckleberries are out and many are quite ripe and delicious 😋
We didn't spend much time at Rachel Lake, but we did hang out at Rampart Lake for a while, which was lovely, though also quite lively — lots of folks about, including backpackers/campers, day hikers, and fisherfolk.
The lakes were beautiful! Rampart Lakes in particular were very pretty, and definitely worth the climb up from Rachel. We did see tents set up on the meadows though, which was sad 😞
Getting to the trailhead at 7:15 was a good idea. We didn't encounter many folks on our way up — we passed a few parties heading up, and some backpackers who were on their way down, and were also passed by a couple of trail runners. Our way down, unsurprisingly, was a different story — I would say we easily yielded to a couple hundred folks on our way down.
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