Road to the TH on Oct 26th

Road to the TH was snowy with a mostly dry track through the middle. Large potholes and compact ice in places. The main issue with the road is that it is single track for long stretches with few options to pull over if you met a car coming the other direction. There is a toilet at the TH, but didn't check its status.

I put on micro-spikes at the car. Compact ice was slippery. Made it to the lake with no problem. Cold and beautiful! Just a couple of other parties at the lake. We headed up to the pass as the sun came out from behind the clouds. Parts of the trail were melting but most was covered with snow and ice. Higher up the snow was knee deep. Thank you to the gentleman who broke trail ahead of us! 

By 2pm, we were still a few hundred feet below the pass and decided to call it a day. We sipped tea, enjoyed the view, and watched several wet avalanches run down the ridge above the lake. As we headed down, the skies darkened and it started to rain. We were back to the car by 4:30.

Most larches are past peak but still beautiful. Winter is coming fast.

A really beautiful winter wonderland out there! I hadn't made the trek to see the larches, and knowing they were probably almost done I figured I might as well just go on an expedition to see the snow. The road had several inches of snow on it but it seemed like about half the people were driving up it and half parked along Highway 20. Not many people out regardless. 

The trail itself was in great shape to Cutthroat Lake. Enough people were walking it that it was still pretty established even with more snow coming down. And I did see a couple yellow larches peeking out beneath the snow! 

I kept going along the Cutthroat Pass trail because I was ultimately hoping to get a bit higher up, but the trail was much less traveled after the lake junction. Eventually the trail was completely footprint-free, roughly 2 miles from the pass. I decided to keep going a little bit, post holing in knee deep snow. About a half mile into that, I called it and built a snowman before turning around. If anyone makes it up that far I hope it makes someone else as happy as it made me!

It seems as though the mountain hiking/trail running season is over. It's been a good run! However, this honestly would have been awesome on some touring skis, so there's that. 

Beautiful panoramic views of mountains and larches around the lake.

We started late at 2:30 pm after doing Blue Lake in the morning. There were plenty of parking spots.

There is intermittent snow on the trail upto the lake. We had microspikes and mostly needed it in the last 0.5 miles leading to the lake - there were a couple of small uphill slopes with snow which were slippery. It started snowing when we were just about to reach the lake.

The panoramic view of snow covered mountains with larches and the lake was gorgeous.

First of all, I am sorry for littering. I accidentally left a yellow z-fold seat pad like this up near the lake on a log under a tree: https://www.rei.com/product/829881/therm-a-rest-z-seat-pad If you find it, please give it a good home. Coordinates are approximately (48.541627, -120.679103) where the trail ends at the lakeshore.

This is a nice gentle hike with a reward of seeing the lake at the end.  It started out around 1pm with some light snow along the trail. By the time we got down there were heavy flurries. The views of the opposite mountains covered with snow and larches were clear along much of the trail.

There were a few fun stops for the kids, especially where they found a large slanted rock and made a slide by packing snow on it.  The snow was plentiful on this day. It started out dry, but by the time we were on the way back there were heavy flurries.  Special props to the person making the hike in Crocs up to the lake through the snow. Half of our party had spikes, the other did not and nobody slipped too badly.

We returned the next morning to see if anyone might have brought the seat pad down, and there was about 8-10 inches of snow on the ground. Many cars were parked at the intersection of the forest road and the highway, while a few other vehicles had made it up to the trailhead. Many people were making the walk from the highway up to the trail.