Did Surprise Lake as an overnight, Sept 21–22. A nice, quiet corner of the Cascades—perfect for squeezing in another backpacking trip before fall really sets in.
Road:
Overall the road is in decent shape. Pavement is bumpy with some large holes to dodge, but many are marked with paint so they don’t sneak up on you. Once it turns to dirt, conditions are fine for a sedan. Just a couple of spots required maneuvering around holes/ruts, but the Camry we were in handled it without issue.
Trail:
Day 1: Hiked up the south (left) side of the lollipop loop to camp at the lake. The bridges aren’t in great shape but are still passable. Otherwise, nothing too major—trail was dry and sandy, no self-service permits at the original trailhead. Once we made it to the lake we saw a few other backpackers (maybe 4 in total), but overall it was nice and quiet for a late-summer weekend.
Day 2: It rained overnight and into the morning, so we had a slow start while waiting for it to let up. Once we got moving, we continued along the trail, making a loop back to the car. About 1.2 miles from the lake we hit a fork and went left up to the ridge. On the map it looks like there is a parallel trail but based on Strava heatmaps research it looks like most folks go up to the ridge. The trail is noticeably rougher after this point, with steeper grades and a few trees to climb over or around. Along the ridge and down the switchbacks, there were several more downed trees, but established go-arounds made navigation easy. Overall, this stretch was fine but not in as good condition as the approach to Surprise Lake.
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