West Fork Foss River and Lakes — Saturday, Sep. 28, 2019

We went up to Big Heart Lake for an overnight backpack. The road to the trailhead was in really good shape with some potholes that were easily avoidable. It was supposed to be rainy all day, but it turned out to be quite sunny for most of the day.

The trail to Trout Lake was quite nice. Once past Trout Lake, the mushrooms came out in full force. There are chanterelles along the trail so keep your eyes open if you know what they look like.

Patches of snow start around the switchbacks up to Lake Malachite. The amount of snow increases quite a bit more towards Copper Lake. Right before you get to Copper Lake, the entire trail is flooded with a standing pool of water. Around Copper Lake, the entire trail is snow covered, although there is nice boot path in the middle. However, there are quite a few sections of water on the trail, so your shoes will get quite wet. We wore trail runners, which may be fine for a day hike if you're moving fast, but your feet will get wet and cold.

The trail is like this until it reaches Little  Heart Lake. The snow was a bit sloppy in places, so footing was a bit treacherous. Once you head up the switchbacks towards Big Heart, the snow becomes substantially deeper. On the climb up, it is probably 4 inches or snow. On the switchbacks down to Big Heart, the snow got even deeper.

It was snowing quite a bit once we got to Big Heart. We camped a few hundred feet away from the creek draining off Delta Lake. The snow was around 6 inches deep there but packed down well. The lake was pretty socked in so we couldn't see much. There was no way to scramble down the lake safely given the snow conditions, so you'd either have to break trail to the creek (which we did not do), walk up a ways towards where the snow was melting onto  the trail, or melt snow for water.

As we were pitching the tent, it started snowing harder. We hurried into the tent, and then it started completely dumping huge flakes of wet snow. We had to bash the side of the tent every few minutes to get it off. It snowed like that for around 2 hours before slowing down and eventually become sleet. We cooked dinner and went to sleep.

While it was snowing, I could hear some rustling on the side of the tent. I blew it off since the snow was bouncing off the tent. However, we woke up to clear signs that a mouse had crawled into the tent to nibble on an apple and poop all over it! It's not cold enough to scare away the critters, so store your food so they can't get it.

There were probably 2 inches of new snow on the ground. We packed up and headed down. Fortunately, the new snow made traction much easier. The sky opened up quite a bit.

In sum, winter has come to the mountains. I'm glad I packed my winter kit, although I regret my choice of footwear. Plan accordingly.