I arrived at the parking lot on a GORGEOUS Thursday morning at 11am to a relatively full parking lot. I parallel parked along the road, there were only maybe 3 or 4 cars that had to do this though. There are two main sections of the road that were full of potholes on the way to the trailhead, but I was completely fine in my Subaru Forester. The trail itself at times was super muddy because of the recent hot weather causing snow to melt. There were a couple streams that were easy to cross, though as people have mentioned before, there are lots of high steps, either stairs that had been put in where the dirt has eroded or big rocks. Bring poles if it would help your knees!
Snow started to appear next to the trail in the last maybe quarter of a mile or so of the hike, but there was none on the trail itself. The lake was absolutely beautiful on this gorgeous day, with clear turquoise waters and the top of the mountain in the backdrop covered with mist and clouds. I walked counter-clockwise on the loop around the lake and found a big rock on the water to sit on and eat my lunch and snacks. There were quite a few bugs and mosquitos specifically that were buzzing around me while I was resting, probably got a few mosquito bites but it was not terribly annoying. After about 45min or so enjoying the weather and the views, I decided to head back down. Overall my watch tracked 4.92 miles in 2 hours 17 min, excluding the amount of time I spent at the lake. A morning/afternoon well spent, now that summer has finally arrived :)
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