Snoqualmie Lake, Nordrum Lake & Lake Dorothy - Lake Bear - Lake Deer — Friday, Jun. 23, 2017

Overnight fastpacking trip: running from the Snoqualmie Lake Trailhead up to Nordrum Lake, back down to reconnect back up to Snoqualmie Lake then to Deer and Bear Lakes with an overnight camping spot along Lake Dorothy. Next day, sauntered to the Lake Dorothy trailhead then re-ran through from the Lake Dorothy Trailhead back to the Snoqualmie Lake Trailhead.

Middle Fork Snoqualmie Road is looking nice! Those potholes from just a few weeks ago are all smoothed out.

Snoqualmie Lake Trail was well maintained with a few stream crossings which were all quite manageable. One could even take a stop to dip in a stream if the forest was feeling a bit warm. Some sections were a bit overgrown around the edges of the trail but pretty normal under story growth activity.

Taking the Nordum Lake trail split leads into some overgrown trail sections but manageable. The creek crossing comes up pretty quickly; a crossing requiring a good comfort level with your sense of balance as there are some downed trees to cross along. They are reasonably wide trunks so a pretty straight forward effort. Heading up the Nordrum Lake trail reveals a lot of forest debris from winter storm activity. This can prove difficult for some since it involved a lot of fallen trees to hurdle, along with a keen eye for wayfinding as you must pay attention to the red tape used as waymarkers. Keep in mind this is all while ascending a fairly steep trail. The ascent is progressively more difficult as you will need to scramble across one boulder field and deal with a few steep sections where you'll need to hoist yourself up a bit. Some of this gets a bit wet/muddy, for once at about 3500'-3600' some snow patches begin to reveal themselves. These are easy to walk over (I was in trail running shoes.) Once the ascent was finished, I looked upon an area covered in snow. Despite the full coverage, it was well packed down so I easily walked on top (again, I was in trail runners) and the way to the lake was self evident. Lake Nordrum looks beautiful while fresh snow melt can be heard running along under the sun. I even made it to the campsite, though it was covered in snow so I would certainly have to move along.

After heading back down, I connected with the Taylor River Trail (Snoqualmie Lake.) There were several blow downs to scramble over and some muddy portions of the trail. Certainly, I was skewed towards the idea that this was easy following my Nordrum Lake trek. This trail had a gradual climb though certainly a noticeable uphill effort. Fortunately it's a nice shady forest. There were a couple sections requiring a bit of cairn spotting as you need to cross over rocky streams. None of the actual water crossing is difficult. I happened upon Snoqualmie Lake a bit sooner than anticipated after the last skip across rocks, so I took a moment for a photo. With the intent of getting to Lake Dorothy I moved along towards Deer Lake. The trail along Snoqualmie Lake is very nice while beginning to ascend towards the next couple lakes. The ascent is well paced with switchbacks offering pleasant views of Snoqualmie Lake from ever higher vantage points. Once you finish the ascent from Snoqualmie Lake, it feels like Deer Lake pops up just around the corner.

Deer and Bear Lake are both high enough to see some snowy patches. But, these are sparse until getting along passed Bear Lake. The trails along these lakes were nice though a couple trees were down, requiring a bit of some scrambling (there is one big down which is probably best to reroute around... I decided to climb, scramble, jump... probably not recommended. I think I saw some human footpaths taking off around above it.) The rock features surrounding the lakes are pretty offering some nice variation against the sky. I'd even suggest camping up here instead of along the more popular Lake Dorothy or even Snoqualmie. But, the spots are a bit fewer (I assume that's due to some snow cover around Bear Lake.) The snow patches did become thicker as I progressed along Bear Lake to the peak of the trail just passed the lake. All of which is fine to walk across and easy to navigate since the trail is plenty visible. The downhill towards Lake Dorothy begins with these patches of snow too.

Working downhill was easy enough (thinking about it as an uphill on my return.) In a couple spots some trees to hurdle, and there were definitely some wet/muddy spots (fresh snow melt, eh.) The approach to Lake Dorothy is quite nice from this vantage point as you get to look up at a nice rock face with some good features (certainly enhanced by western sunset light.) The stream crossing on that side was a nice cold break for my well tread feet, leaving me with the debate of just sitting in the cold flowing water... But it was approaching sunset and the bugs were ready to feast. Getting to Lake Dorothy in the evening was perhaps a bit poorly planned considering it is a popular spot so open campsites were few and far between. Still there were one or two spots to be had, just less of a choice (mind you, I was solo.) Camp setup went swiftly since the bugs were hungry. I definitely put on the long sleeves at this point. Once the sun was down, it was cooler and less buggy so it became a nice opportunity for some stargazing.

Next day, woke up and followed along the rest of Lake Dorothy Trail to the trailhead. Being a well used trail it was maintained nicely. Some muddy spots but WTA trail crews were there getting work done (thanks!) A fair amount of people started to get on the trail by morning, so once I got to the trailhead I dropped a layer ate some Cliff Blocks then booked it back up to Bear Lake. Once back up there, just a nice day passing along thoe two lakes. Saw a couple folks in hammocks chilling by the lakes which seemed idyllic. Naturally, I kept along with my pace and pushed on back to the Snoqualmie Lake Trailhead. Featuring much of what I already described this was a bit more of a straight trail run. Though, a fair amount of people were coming up from the Snoqualmie Lake Trailhead too so I did stop to converse with a couple folks. As the heat of the day increased, I was glad to get into the shadier forest spots and stop by the streams along the Snoqualmie Lake trail.