Baker Lake - Maple Grove — Sunday, Mar. 31, 2019

Perfect hike for an early season leg stretcher! The trail along Baker Lake is completely melted out and easily accessible by any vehicle. We started from the southern trailhead with the goal of hiking as far north as we could before our turnaround time. At the 3-hour point, we had made it the curve in the lake and decided to start heading back down. It would have been pretty sweet to have a car shuttle for this one so we could have hiked the whole length of the lake (14.5 miles I believe) – but we still enjoyed exploring just the southern portion. The water level in the lake is extremely low right now, which didn’t lend itself to exceptionally scenic views, but thankfully the mountain was out and looking gorgeous. In total, I think we passed only 4 hikers during our trek. There were, however, a decent number of folks camped out at Maple Grove — which looked like a lovely early-season backpacking spot (it also has a crazy cool toilet… highly recommend checking it out even if you don’t need to go).