Surprise and Glacier Lakes, Surprise Lake Snowshoe — Saturday, Jan. 28, 2006

Central Cascades > Stevens Pass - West

Our original plan for the Rainier area changed at the last minute and we ended up at Surprise Lake. Drove to the trailhead under thinly overcast sky and found the turnoff to the trailhead well plowed. We were able to get over the train tracks with chains but found that is where the plowed section ends. We had some difficulty getting back over the tracks afterward so you might want to be careful unless you have a 4x4. There are several ""no-parking"" signs around and it looks like a sand-loading area for plows so be careful where you park. At the trailhead the snow was only a few inches but by the time we climbed to the powerlines it was already over a foot deep. We put on our snowshoes and headed into the trees. There were a few inches of fresh snow but not enough to obscure the previous hikers tracks. We followed the tracks in enjoying the good snow and dry day. A little over a half mile in we came to the first small creek crossing. This one wasn't too bad but we did have to carefully step down before we could get across. Not much futher up we reached the second small creek and a very narrow foot log. This one was much trickier to get across. I scraped off the fresh snow with my shovel and we carefully balanced across on the crusty snow beneath. There were several more of these difficult narrow creek crossings. Poles help immensely, a shovel also. I wished I had brought my ice-axe. Eventually we descended down to Surprise Creek and stayed parallel to this for the rest of our trip. We followed it a ways looking for a safe crossing. We ended up below a talus slope with no obvious way around and had a break behind some huge boulders. We backtracked to where I believe the summer crossing is but were unable to find a safe place to cross because of the very deep fresh snow made even descending to the water level hard. All in all still a great snowshoe with excellent fresh snow. We may be back to try again. More trip photos: http://www.pbase.com/billcat/hiking/