Day hiked to Big Heart Lake on Saturday and overall it was a great, but long day!
Road/Parking: The Foss River Road is in pretty good shape with some washboarding but nothing too concerning. Once you make the left to head towards the trailhead there are a lot more potholes, many of which are unavoidable. No issues for any car to make it to trailhead but it will slow you down a bit. There is probably room for 25-30 cars to park and when we arrived at 9am on Saturday the spots were mostly all taken. I opted to park just off the main lot on a side pullout, but a few more cars squeezed into spots after me. Not a ton of shoulder space but there were a few more cars there when we returned. Toilet was clean enough and had some TP remaining but always bring our own.
Trail: Lots of backpackers gearing up when we started out. The first mile is flat and then gains about 500-600 feet to Trout Lake. We saw several tents here, snapped a quick photo and continued on. The exposed section past Trout Lake felt hot and unenjoyable with plenty of rocks to slow you down. It was a welcome relief to get out of the sun and make it to the junction with Copper & Malachite Lakes. We went to Malachite first and took a brief snack break. The lake is pretty with plenty of logs at the outlet. There were a few backpackers and fishers here. It’s a very short and steep trek up but thankfully shaded.
Following the break, we continued the short distance to Copper Lake. The lake is very large and there were several tents already set up when we arrived. We continued on around the lake finding an excellent rock for another snack and swim. Perfect spot to jump in and enjoy the water which was a pleasant temperature. We debated ending our day here but eventually peeled ourselves away from the lake and continued on.
Once you leave Copper Lake, there is a nice and relatively flat section before beginning the hike up to Little Heart Lake. LH Lake also has plenty of logs at the outlet so we only stopped here briefly before continuing on to our main objective. We passed a couple that we saw at Malachite coming down from their day hike up to Big Heart. It’s a climb getting up to the high point but we were happy to have views out to Trout Lake and a peek of Glacier Peak. AllTrails mentions seeing Baker, but it was hazy looking out and we didn’t see it. Once you reach the ridge, it’s downhill to Big Heart with some views out to Otter Lake along the way. Big Heart also has some logs at the outlet but we continued on a bit further before dropping our things and taking the dinghy’s out for a spin. We found a nice little island area which was perfect for solitude and swimming. We saw another couple who pack-rafted their camp gear and were set up on another island for the night which looked awesome! After a late lunch, paddle and swim, we reluctantly made the long trek back to the trailhead. We passed three more groups of backpackers heading up to Big Heart.
Bugs: not very noticeable. We sprayed our legs at the car but after wiping them down before swimming in Copper we didn’t reapply and only ended up with a couple of bites.
Started at 9:30am and arrived back at the car at 10:30pm. Took 3 hours worth of breaks along the way. Final Garmin stats were 17.56 miles and 4,498 elevation.
Trip highlights can be found on my IG: @boundtoexplore
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