Parked (a small old 2wd Ford Ranger) just before the spur to Surprise Lake. We got stuck (ice/lack of traction) trying to turn around, and used cables to get parked right around there. A couple guys were coming down (a truck and a Jeep Cherokee) and said they we stuck overnight, while we were cabling. The road quickly got worse for the 3.5 mile walk to the trailhead, although there were some heavy duty off roaders that did make it to Coplay Lake. The turn off there and on up to Summit Lake has not seen attention for a while except a snowshoer.
Once reaching the trailhead the big sign there is trying to get buried in snow. The one snowshoer track we saw, very quickly turned back and we were on our own. There's really no evidence of trail anywhere, and we decided to use our senses along with navigation to create our own path up. Way better than attempting the trail.
The ridge up and the peak were beautiful. It was still very clear and we could see Tahoma in all her glory, Mount St Helens off in the distance, all the way through the Sound to the Olympics, and over to Mount Stuart reaching out of the Enchantments.
On the way out we shot across the lake and pretty much straight down the mountain next to a possible avy path through the trees, and made our way onto the road, below the trailhead. Quick and easy to make up for lost time navigating the way up, and parking miles before the TH.
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