Greider Lakes, Boulder Lake — Monday, Sep. 8, 2025

I drove the Sultan Basin Road from Highway 2 in Sultan up to Olney Pass. At the pass there is kiosk where you sign in for recreation in the City of Everett watershed which is run by the City and Snohomish County PUD. Began my hike at the Spada Lake trailhead and boat launch parking lot in the Sultan Basin. No other cars parked when I arrived. There are two sanicans and a kiosk with hike info. The DNR kiosk needs to be updated as it still has the Boulder Lake trail closed because the bridge is out at Boulder Creek. But the bridge was replaced in 2023. The trail starts through the forest and shortly comes out on the old DNR road (now just a single-track trail) that you use to be able to drive to the trailheads (TH) for Greider Lakes and Boulder Lake trails. The section of the road between the Greider Lakes TH and the Boulder Lake TH was closed and decommissioned in 2008.The section between the present-day parking lot TH and the old Greider Lakes TH was closed and decommissioned in 2010.

In the past couple of years, the DNR has been putting in new trail bridges over some of the larger creeks on the main trail that is on the old roadbed. These new truss bridges are made out of structural fiberglass. On the way I stopped at the PUD Bear Creek Recreation Site. There are two sanicans here along with two picnic tables and a bench with a nice view of Spada Lake and the surrounding mountains. The sanicans have metal frames around them so that they can be flown in and out via helicopter. When I got up to the cement concrete road bridge over Greider Creek built in 1981, two young guys and their dog caught up to me. We had a nice chat about hiking, and I told them the history of the Greider Lakes trail. It was built back in 1968.

I continued on Boulder Lake trail from the old parking lot of the former Greider lakes TH. The trail follows the old roadbed, and I crossed over two more new fiberglass bridges before getting to the former parking lot where the Boulder Lake TH was once located. I hiked the old road about another 1/4 mile to where it once crossed over Elk Creek. The cement concrete bridge abutments are still there. The DNR dismantled the bridge in 2008 and hauled the timbers away. This is a good size creek that would be hard the cross.

I hiked back to the old Boulder Lake TH for lunch. The old privy is still there, but in bad shape. There are two heavy duty Knaack metal toolboxes for trail maintenance to store shovels, axes, hoes and Poleskis, plus hand saws. Probable used when the WTA trail crew was up rebuilding the trail to Boulder Lake. These two boxes were flown in via helicopter, as they would be too heavy to pack.

After lunch I hike up the trail that is on a former DNR spur road that was used when the area was logged back in the 1960's. It is about a 5-minute hike up the new bridge installed 2 years ago over Boulder Creek. The old log bridge was closed for several years as carpenter ants had destroyed it. The trail up to Boulder Lake was opened in 1977, the first time I had hiked to the lake. At the bridge there is a waterfall up stream to see. To hike to the lake will add another 8 miles round trip from where I turned around.

On the way back to the parking lot I met a few more hikers coming up the trail in the afternoon. The only wildlife I saw was one grouse and one large Garder snake. I stopped and checked out the PUD Nighthawk picnic site. It is a short distance off the main trail. I thought it might be another viewpoint like their Bear Creek site. I found several picnic tables and benches, but no view. You can kind of see Spada Lake downhill through the trees. The main trail on the old roadbed has many up and down sections where the culverts were removed from the road when it was closed. Some of the creeks had water flowing in them. My hike was 7.7 miles round trip. George