Ira Spring Trail - Mason Lake — Monday, Apr. 17, 2000

Snoqualmie Region > Snoqualmie Pass

Hit the trailhead around 11:00 am and was the only car there. The trail was dry up until the point where the trail parallels Mason Creek. At that point was postholing and mud stomping. Decided to ascend the clear slope before the lake. Followed some ski tracks to over the southeastern slope of Bandera, until descending into the lake basin. Lake is still snow covered with about 3 - 4 ' of snow around the lake. Lunched on an exposed rock on the southern shore and watched the Canadian Geese returning for another season of fouling our city parks. Headed back along the Creek until I discovered someone's food cache partially buried in the snow. A couple of hefty bags with MREs, matches, toliet paper, juice boxes, etc. Something had already helped itself to most of the food, and in the process left a mess of wrappers and torn plastic. Having only a small plastic sack, I gathered as much of the garbage as I could and buried the rest with remains of the hefty bags and covered it with a 2 gallon jug of water that was part of the cache. Hopefully someone heading that way can rertrieve the rest and join me in cursing inconsiderte sots who do this.