I had a rather ambitious plan to take the Lake Lillian trail out to Alta Mountain with stops at all the various lakes in between. The weather and shorter days made me reconsider how much I was going to do. I have learned to be a little smarter about how far to push myself ;o)
I made good time and got to the parking area about the time I expected (8 am) and it looked like everyone else had the same idea time-wise as there were 5 other cars and everyone was just arriving. I'm glad that there were multiple other people there because I thought the trail started at the back of the parking lot and that was definitely not the case. You have to walk up the gravel road you drove in on a little ways until you reach another gravel road that will take you to the actual trail which has a marker with a florescent pink ribbon on it.
The trail up to Margaret Lake is in pretty good shape but was very thoroughly soaked, muddy and lightly snow covered. I had to take it slow going down to Margaret Lake as this part of the trail was steep and slick in places. The lake was beautiful, accented by the fall colors and snow capped mountains. I spent a little more time than I intended but I just couldn't break away from the scenery. I decided to drop the trip to Margaret Mountain for another time to make up for the extra time I spent at the lake.
The trail from Margaret to Lillian was increasingly more snow covered, muddy and lightly flooded in places. Nothing too bad but definitely want to have your wits about you and watch your footing. I stepped on what I thought was just a wet part of the trail and my whole foot went down in to a mud pot. Fortunately I was easily able to remove it and nothing got into my boot.
Lillian lake was picturesque but a little shrouded in fog. I had a little trouble finding the right path to continue on to the backdoor trail to Rampart Lakes. The trail kind of disappeared onto a fairly steep rock face that gave me pause as it was raining lightly and it didn't have a lot of good foot/hand holds. I managed to scramble across it and literally slide down the last little bit to get back to the trail. The ascent up to the ridge was not much better as it has a few places that you're going straight up on wet loose soil. It's probably a lot easier to navigate when dry.
I only saw a 5 other people on this part of the trail with the last 3 stopped at the little pond just before the last push up and over to Rampart Lakes. At this point the snow was fairly deep and beyond the foot prints the trail was hard to follow. I reached the spot where everyone else turned back, someone had marked it with a giant X. I'm not sure it was the smartest idea to continue on past that point as it was more of a boulder field and it was difficult to tell where would be safe to step without my foot slipping between boulders. I kept going because I could see the lakes and knew as long as I went slow and was careful with my footing I would be fine. Also it helped that my dog kind of lead the way and was able to assist in guiding me past the boulder field.
As I got further down the snow cover was less and I could make out the trail again. I pretty much slid down the rest of the way and made to the lakes in one piece. It was overcast cloud cover and rain by the time I got to the lakes. I was surprised to see there were quite a few campers around the lakes.
It was much easier to get around this area. By the time I made it to Rachel Lake I decided that it would be my stopping point as I spent way more time getting there than I had wanted. Plus Alta Mountain was surely snow covered and having already narrowly escaped injury navigating down to Rampart Lakes I quit while I was ahead.
It was far easier navigating my way out because it had warmed up a little and the rain had melted some of the snow making footing far less treacherous. The snow that had been on the first part of the trail was all but gone and I was back at the truck by 5 pm. Enjoyed this hike and left a little more to explore for next time.
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