Surprise and Glacier Lakes, Surprise Lake Snowshoe — Friday, Mar. 7, 2008

Central Cascades > Stevens Pass - West

Surprise Lake trailhead was unused since the last snowfall, and with some rain that had fallen the trail was nowhere to be found. My buddy and I hiked through the woods and headed to the southeast (knowing that was the direction of the trail). I had done this snowshoe hike two years ago and remembered the direction we went. I knew we would hike between two small mountain ranges where Surprise creek drains. So we just hiked through the woods until we ended up to the snowfields, and ended up about 200 feet above the trail. We could see the creek below. Hiked across some avalanche slides, maybe we shouldn't have, but we did. Had lunch in the trees, and made it close to three miles out. Decided to turn around, and made it back to the truck just before 3:00pm. We had started at close to 10am. Not a bad day, with the weather clearing during the hike. My redbone coonhound is exhausted sleeping on the couch, and I'm on my second Mirror Pond. Life is good today.