Lakes Trail, South Coldwater Trail — Wednesday, Jul. 19, 2023

We did the Coldwater Lake loop, starting at the Lakes Trail Trailhead boat launch and circling the lake. It was a nice hike along the north side of the lake on the Lakes Trail. Lots of streams coming into the lake along this side for water gathering and no problem crossing. Not a lot of access to the lake, but enough. We lunched at the NW end of the lake where we refilled/filtered our water bladders in prep for the hill and ridge hike ahead, not seeing any potential water access on the map along the ridge, and there was none so be prepared for that. There is a nice set of falls at the end of the lake where the Coldwater Creek enters, a little before the bridge that you can see from the trail. We tried to get a closer look, but the trail didn’t provide that and we didn’t want to go off trail, so settled for the view from the established trail going by. After crossing the creek, you go uphill and gain about 1500 ft in the next two miles. The trail is still shady through this part and a bit brushy but not bad. We also had the benefit of ripe Thimbleberries to munch along this gain. Once you reach the ridge your hike becomes much more exposed and we did go over the ridge at about our 9 mile mark, where there is a trail to get views of Mt St Helens. This is also a little (SW of) after the logging equipment which was destroyed in the blast and sits along the trail. There was lots of great wildflowers all along the trail, especially in this exposed area of the ridge. We continued down to the South Coldwater Trailhead and did the mile+ road walk back to our car (which is not a pleasant way to end a hike, but we knew this going in). A nice long loop on a hot day. GAIA clocked us at 12.5 miles with 1800 gain for the loop hike.