We left the parking lot at the Stuart Lake trailhead around 7am, and the parking lot was probably about half full. The first two miles of the trail were mostly bare ground, but there were patches of snow/ice. After the split between Lake Stuart and Colchuck Lake, the trail continued this pattern for about another mile. After that, it was pretty much completely snow and ice covered until we reached Lake Stuart.
After passing Lake Stuart and heading back into the woods, this "trail" becomes more like an obstacle course. There were more than 50 trees down that you either had to climb over, crawl under, walk down, etc. The initial burn area really isn't bad, and we actually had fun playing on this obstacle course. There is a solid bootpath here, but there are also several times it kind of disappears.
Once you get out of the woods and start heading up is when the real adventure begins. There is no trail here. Yes, there was a bootpath here for part of it, but it definitely wasn't on a trail. In this area, you are back to climbing over trees, using dead trees as veggie belays, trying to navigate a few sketchy creek crossings, and scrambling over ice covered rocks. It was a blast on the way up, and completely sucked on the way down. The last quarter of a mile up to the lake is a solid sheet of ice covered by fresh powder. We ended up putting spikes on for this section on the way down, but were too lazy to grab them on the way up.
After all of that work, the solitude and larches were absolutely amazing.
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