Marten Lake, Garfield Ledges, Snoqualmie Lake, Taylor River - Otter Falls, Quartz Creek/Lake Blethen & Rooster Mountain — Sunday, Feb. 18, 2024

This is a trip report for Marten Lake, but I'm tagging several other trails in the area because the lost objects described at the end of this report might well belong to people who visited one or more of the other trails:

No report in over a month, which feels like a long time for a trail that's clearly been getting decent traffic (including at least a half dozen people on the boot path portion today alone). Anyway, my report is as follows: there is much less snow now than there was when the previous trip report was published.

I made it to the lake without taking snowshoes, microspikes, or gaiters out of my pack. I did see one man at the lake wearing microspikes, so I suppose it can't hurt to come prepared. I lost the trail a few times here and there, even though I've been here several times before, so be prepared to poke around until you find it, or come with a map or an app.

Finally, I took home three items that I saw on the way up and were still sitting out on the way down. (Didn't think leaving them to the elements would be helpful.) Comment below with some detail/description of the item you think might be yours and we can figure out how to get it back to you:

1) A glove, found at the Snoqualmie Lake trailhead

2) A knit hat, found at the last pullout where the pavement ends (just before the bridge leading to the Garfield Ledges parking lot)

3) A headlamp, in the same location as item (2). The headlamp was *on* when I found it, so it was the only one of these three items that didn't look like it had already been there for some time. I turned it off and left it on the hood of my white car (where it would be very visible), but when I got back down, the other cars parked nearby were all gone and the headlamp was still there