Lake Laura Backdoor — Sunday, May. 17, 2015

Snoqualmie Region > Snoqualmie Pass

My group and I found the instructions on how to get there pretty hard to follow. There were really no "turns" in the road so it would have been easier and less confusing for the description to say "follow the dirt road all the way down and make a right in the second forked path" instead of using FR numbers since there was no sign for FR 136 anywhere. The "parking lot" had a big washed out path right in the center so you'll have to veer to the left a lot when first coming in. The road was definitely pothole-y, but was easily passable in an SUV. Might be a little hard with lower clearance vehicles but if you drive slow enough, you should be able to get through. There was one particular part of the dirt road that was pretty washed out but if you move far enough to the right when coming in, you should be OK. There is no clear trail head marker so my group and I stupidly took the wrong path through LOTS of overgrown twigs for an hour or so before figuring out that this was probably not the right way. The correct trail head entrance is directly in front of you when you come into the parking lot. The trail isn't clearly marked at all so there were several times where my group and I had to stop and wander around the different paths to see which one seemed to be on the right track. We completely missed Lake Laura on the way up and went directly to Lake Lillian first. Lake Lillian was still frosted over for most of it with some parts where you can see the water moving below the ice which was cool. You have to hike up some patches of ice to get to Lake Lillian and a couple almost melted up patches to get to Lake Laura. Good hike overall, just wish it was better marked so there's less confusion.