Ira Spring Trail - Mason Lake — Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026

It's hard to find accessible hikes on I-90 during the winter, so here I am again with a report for Ira Spring and Mason Lake. 

We picked this one again because we did not make it to Mason Lake last time. The very first thing was checking forecasts, both weather and avalanche. The weather was calling for potentially mixed precipitation at pass level, so we knew it would be warmer than last time. The avalanche risk was rated as low for the 2500-4000ft range of elevation so that was okay as well. We'd keep an eye out for conditions on the hike. We did not see anything indicating recent activity. 

The trail: Parked at the Tinkham Road exit. The entire connector trail to the Ira Spring trailhead is snow free and soggy. The trailhead parking lot only had small patches of slush left. Ira Spring trail was also snow free for quite a while up the trail. I did not put on microspikes due to snow on trails until around 3800ft. By the trail junction with Bandera Mt there was plenty of snow. The trail between Bandera junction and the ridge before the drop into the basin was DEEP snow. I postholed a lot in this section, and maybe cursed a time or three. Postholing all the way above the knee in some spots. At this elevation it was snowing, which was a nice change from the rain lower in the hike. 

After getting through that one spot we continued down into the basin. Lots of snow on the backside of the ridge as you descend. Once you get down there is a decent boot path with firmer snow to follow. We walked over to the lake and had lunch there. We were joined by some other hikers that started right after us. Lunch was chicken and dumplings, with hot coffee I had brought in a thermos. 

The hike down was uneventful. It's really sad to see how hard it has been this winter to build a decent snowpack.