Heather Lake — Friday, Feb. 22, 2002

North Cascades > Mountain Loop Highway

Fleetfoot and I left Seattle a little after 9 o'clock. We parked about a quarter mile down the road due to the low clearance of the car and large potholes in the road.Several inches of snow in the parking lot and four cars. We were hiking in light rain.We checked out the large ceader stumps that must have been cut about 100 years ago. After the first switchback the trail was snow free but not clear of water.We cleared the trail of about four small trees on the way in and two more that we left for the way out. We started encountering snow after about a mile which turned to solid snow about three-fourths of a mile from the lake. It was solid snow so long as you stayed on the narrow track. Mostly you would posthole up to your knee but my walking stick sank up to the handle a couple of times. The light rain began to turn to snow before we got to the lake. There were two groups of people on the trail and one group at the lake. We could see some of the ridge top around the lake but not all. We saw a couple of small avalanches that did not fall to lake basin. Snow started to turn to light rain and clouds began to descend from the ridge top so we headed back. Nice hike when you know that it will be raining no matter where you go.