Dock Butte — Thursday, Nov. 28, 2019

The road getting to the trailhead is in great shape, but as of today it has up to 5 or so inches of snow for the last few miles. For most of this, there were wheel tracks that we could safely stay in. Our Subaru Forester made it almost to the top but couldn't get up the last 20 feet to the "official "parking lot.

Weather: clear skies, 25°F at the trailhead

The trial is snow covered from the beginning, so microspikes and poles were used the entire time. Most of the snow was fine powder today, so the spikes likely didn't help too much. 

We missed the Blue Lake - Dock Butte fork (the Blue Lake trail had a bootpath to follow, while the Dock Butte trail was not signed nor an obvious path), so we decided to continue to Blue Lake then double back and find the Dock Butte trail. Getting to and from the completely frozen lake was straightforward, and it was a worthwhile detour. 

We were able to find and then follow the Dock Butte trail by using the AllTrails app with GPS tracking. Without it, a map and navigation skills, or some prior knowledge of the trail, finding which way to go across a few open snowfields would have been very difficult. We stopped and turned back with about a half mile left since we wanted to make it back down the road before sunset, but not before getting fantastic views of Baker and the surrounding North Cascades mountains.