Snow Lake, Gem Lake — Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025

This might be a wasted effort given that I'll be preaching to the choir on WTA.

Nobody needs another trail report for Snow Lake, but pretty please, if you decide to go up there in November and going into the winter, do yourself and others a favor and prepare properly. The amount of blissfully ignorant people going up into the mountains on this trail is just mind boggling and it should be a criminal liability.

Winter conditions now apply. Inform yourself about the weather and conditions. Look up trail reports. Check the weather, for example at mountain-forecast.com. Be aware that there is avalanche danger on many popular trails when snow builds up - this risk starts getting real early in winter. On Sunday, there was not enough snow for this to be an issue yet, but with the last precipitation, I'd check in on that again before going.

Have the ten essentials. If you don't know what they are, look them up.
Have appropriate clothing for winter conditions in the mountains. And no, sneakers and jeans are not it. Sorry. I ran across way too many people up there without a backpack, in sneakers, jeans, a light jacket and many who only went up in t-shirts.

You need traction devices now. Bring microspikes. Don't bring those cheap Costco strap-ons. Get good ones.

Don't start your hike up into the mountains halfway into the day. Days are short now and sunlight fades earlier than sunset in the mountains. Did you bring a headlight? Of course you didn't...

Make way for oncoming hikers that ascend up, they have right of way. Learn some trail manners.

Speaking of manners. Boomboxes don't belong on the trail, bring headphones. Yes, of course there were people there on Sunday blasting their crap music into the environment for everyone to share.

I started my hike around 7am on Sunday and went up to Snow Lake through the rain and snow showers in the morning, to enjoy a peaceful morning without the mass tourism at the lake. I continued on towards Gem Lake around Snow Lake and turned around before going up that last steep incline up to Gem Lake. On my way back down I came across the madness that is the blissfully ignorant venturing into the mountains in early winter unprepared.

Check my images for conditions (on past Sunday).