This hike is similar to the Lake 22 hike. It is a 4 mile hike; however it is a bit more strenuous than Lake 22. We started hiking at 3:00 PM, spent about a half hour at the lake, and we were back at the trailhead at 7:15. The trail is snow free until 1/4 mile from the lake. The lake is mostly thawed and is quite beautiful. The lakeshore is covered with about 4 feet of snow, and there is some post holing, so please be careful.

We hiked to Heather Lake today, and it was a beautiful day for it. Trail is in good shape. A bit muddy on the second half. Probably around 1/2 mile from the lake everything is abruptly covered in a few feet of snow. The trail is still easy to follow though as lots of people were there before us... snow was slippery and we postholed quite a bit, but did fine without poles. Some people were in flip-flops! Most of the boardwalk by the lake was melted out so there are plenty of dry spots to eat lunch at around the lake. Beautiful little lake!

The trail to Heather Lake is snow-free for about the first mile and a half. The lower part of this trail was logged some time ago, leaving many huge cedar stumps. After about a mile you reach old growth forest where some of the big trees remain. There is still a lot of snow at the lake. I drove the Mt. Pilchuck road beyond the Heather Lake trailhead. There are many trees across the road, but they have been cut out enough to drive around them. I made it almost to the Mt. Pilchuck trail parking lot which was still snowed-in.

James and I hiked up to Heather Lake off the Mountain Loop Highway after work on Thursday 5-16-08. (Note the date stamps on the photos are off by one day.) For the distance of halfway up, the trail is in great shape - a thank you to those that cleared this winter's blow downs! After that point it is a very deeply snow covered, but it is easy to follow the boot path in the snow to the lake. The boot path appears to deviate from the trial in places so one must pay attention to their whereabouts and navigation. There were a few spots with deep holes in the snow starting to develop along the path, but nothing unmanageable with some proper caution and care. Also one must be careful around the lake and lake outlet. The snow was firm enough for hiking in boots. Gaiters were a good idea, though I did fine without them and without poles. There was a slight noticeable increase in stream flow on the way down in the evening, but nothing serious. There did not seem to us to be any concern for avalanche and stream flooding on this trail and boot path on this very warm day. However please use you own best judgment and informed evaluations of the current conditions if you choose to go. All together a super way to spend a weekday evening after work!

Climbed to Heather Lake today. Beautiful weather and calm. The trail is snow packed and no trail markers to find your way. I got about 1 mile into the trail following someone's snowshoe tracks until they turned around. Then it got deep. I was into knee high snow with snowshoes and broke out the GPS to get to the lake. It took 3.5 hours to get to the lake. There were areas I could look down over a drift to see running water and it was at least 15 feet deep. I saw and heard 4 avalanches coming down off of Mt. Pilchuck. I followed my same trail back down and was out in no time. Rough going up though. There is some blow down on the way but not to bad. Snow shoes and hiking poles a must.