Lake 22 — Thursday, Aug. 20, 2020

The trail itself was in good shape, I'd probably give it three or four stars. Mother nature did a good job of putting some nice waterfalls next to a good size lake with a few snow fields in the background. We arrived at the trailhead around 11.30 on this Thursday morning. It had been raining earlier in the morning and was still overcast, so that may have kept a decent number of people away as we were able to find a parking spot without much difficulty.

However, I left Lake 22 feeling rather disappointed. Almost immediately after we started up the trail, we started seeing garbage all along the way. Once we stopped and had our lunch, I started collecting it in my sandwich bag like I sometimes do. Rarely do I fill it up on a trail, but this time I filled it up, my wife's sandwich bag up, and another gallon sized Ziploc bag. I also collected three Starbucks Venti cups, two energy drink cans, two beer bottles (one still filled), one Gatorade bottle, eight single use water bottles, and one heavy boot sole. All of this came from either on the trail or within a couple feet of it. I know I passed by at least a half dozen more single use water bottles out of reach (but still visible), lots of dog poop bags, and a dozen socks and other articles of clothing. There were also numerous places where people had left their toilet paper and there are many piles of molding dog poop along the way. I had to turn back on the way to the pit toilet because it was so bad.

Overall, I don't think I want to return to this trail. There are many other trails on the Mountain Loop that I think are just as beautiful (or more so) and have less people/garbage. If you do hike Lake 22, please bring a bag with you so you can help leave it a better place than you found it.