Corral Pass Snowshoe, Greenwater and Echo Lakes & Greenwater Trail to Lost Lakes — Saturday, Aug. 9, 2014

Mount Rainier Area > Chinook Pass - Hwy 410

My Wife and I decided to hike Corral Pass Grand Canyon style. We started at the top of Corral Pass ,5,750 ft, hiking clock-wise to Noble Knob, down to Lost Lake, Echo Lake, and back up to Corral Pass. The road up to Corral Pass was pretty rough, however at the parking lot I saw a Honda Civic and Toyota Prius so there yea go. We ran out the ridge north towards Noble Knob stopping along the way to enjoy Huckleberries and Mountain Blueberries. Stopping at Noble Knob for lunch we had clear unobstructed view of Mt. Rainer. After lunch we continued downward to Lost Lake. The trail was fairly unmaintained and by my guess an unpopular route to take. It was exposed to the afternoon sun and pretty steep, which explains its unpopularity. Once we arrived at Lost Lake we took a nap in the grass. There were a handful of groups of people, some fishing on the banks, some floating in the lake, etc. Between Lost and Echo Lakes, Lost is the smaller, but way better choice. There were several awesome campsites and very little to no bugs, not to mention the smell. Echo Lake smelt horrible, hot, buggy, stagnate water filled the air with a less then desirable odor. That night our goal was to camp at Green Water lakes, but it being late in the season, I was concerned the lake would be all but gone and filled with bugs. So we opted to continue our loop camping along Green Water River. It was getting later then we wanted so we found a flat spot along the creek to camp for the night. It was a little buggy, but not bad. Naturally, the next morning we got back on the trail and hike 5 more minutes to find an actual campsite, go figure. That day we hiked out the rest of the loop, enjoying the beautiful and cool temperature under the forest canopy. As I mentioned earlier, we quickly made our way past Echo Lake to get away from the stank. Before we made our last ascent up to the top of Corral Pass we filled up from one of the many springs along the trail. One thing to keep in mind was this leg of the trail was under cover of the forest canopy, as compared to our descent that was pretty well exposed. Overall, I figured we hiked about 14 miles, 8 of which we knocked out the first day. The descent into Lost lake was pretty steep and rough, compared to the more gradual switchback climb we had out of Echo Lake. If you want to complete the loop start at the pass and attack it clockwise as we did. If you just want an out and back, come from FS70 Noble Knob Trailhead.