Rachel Lake — Friday, Jun. 3, 2005

Snoqualmie Region > Snoqualmie Pass

Susie and I wanted some sunny hiking so we pushed on past Snoqualmie Pass to the Rachel Lake trail. True to the guide book, the trailhead parking lot had lots of cars in it. On the way to the trailhead we had two adventures. The first was a rather large brown bear on the road ahead. It took one look at us and bounded off into the trees, but not before we got a good look at it. We also took a wrong turn on the way in to the trailhead. When you reach the Lake Kachess campground, turn left up the dirt road. At the large sign, stay to your right. If you go left you will see some nice country, but you won’t find the trailhead. Once on the trail we found it in very good shape up to the waterfall – and we found roots and several pretty massive mud pits. With waders you should have no problem. The lake was fairly busy, with a large group camping on the south shore, already in their sleeping bags due to the clouds that had drifted in during our hike. We pressed on to the ridge above the lake for some absolutely fantastic views of the lake from above. Well worth the extra elevation gain on this trail that is also in very good shape. At the top of the ridge we found the first patches of snow. They will probably be gone after three or four days of sunny weather. The trip back to the car was uneventful. We did rebuild some brush berms to keep people from getting off on the many false trails that branch off the main trail. Some of those branches look pretty authentic – and one of them snared us for several minutes until we backtracked and found that we completely missed a switchback.