Blue Lake — Saturday, Sep. 30, 2023

Our anniversary hike!
Arrived at TH at around 7:45a, after a 3 hr drive from Seattle. 9 vehicles at parking lot. Started hike at 8am. Frost on uphill side of trail in some places. Much colder at the top than at the bottom. Passed about 2 hikers on the way up, and one hiker coming down. We arrived at the rock area near the lake at about 9am, and we were alone for a few minutes until others arrived. Everyone seemed to stop here to take selfies and eat their snacks, and one will hear everyone's conversations here; so make sure after visiting the rock, you take the fork to the right to the tarn loop, where you can see Blue Lake from above, another small lake, and the larches in their glory (and it's less crowded). There were a few flurries of snow up in the tarn. It took us about an hour to get back down, and met many hikers coming up. The parking lot was full when we got to our car at 11:15am, and noticed many more cars parked on Hwy 20. This was a beautiful hike to see the larches; and would consider it on the low end of moderate difficulty.