Spring Lake/Lake Desire Park - Echo Mountain — Monday, Mar. 16, 2026

My hiking group switched gears to hike a lowland hike with the snowfall over the weekend to Echo Mountain area at the Spring Lake Th.  We meet at the Th at 9:15, it was 43 degrees with significant rain falling. There was a was a vault toilet available down at the Spring Lake boat launch, a short walk away.   Weather forecasts indicated the clouds would break up by 10:00 and that’s exactly what happened.  I’ve hiked to Echo Mtn several times to see spring wildflowers in late March / early April.  Today we were surprised that several inches of snow was still on the ground for about half our route. Wanting a longer hike we explored the MacGarvey Open Space under the power lines and back into the forest. Our 6.7 mile route followed Trillium Way, R on Ridge Loop (look for the Tree Stump Guy), R on Echo Quarry, R on an unnamed path to Wetland 14 natural Area, L on PowerLine then back onto McGarvey East for a big Lollipop loop back to Echo Quarry Trail.  To finish our hike we took the Three Lakes South Loop. We decided not to hike to the top of Echo peak with the low clouds hanging around as we knew the view would be nonexistent.  With the recent wind and snow storms all our routes were littered with downed trees, deadfall and shrubs covering the trail. We cleaned the trail as much as we could the entire time we were hiking. On the Powerline trail we encountered several long stretches that were flooded.  We picked our way around those as best we could.  Spring was in the air despite remaining snow on the ground.  We saw Osoberry, purple violets, self heal, flowering plum and a rhododendron in bloom.  We saw and heard lots of bird species - wren, robins, juncos, geese, mallard, bufflehead and mergansers floating on one of the ponds. We made use of downed Maple Tree on the power line trail and used that as a sitting spot for a lunch break.  Beware if it’s raining, that the ditch on the north side of the road adjacent to the parking looks full with over flowing  water, it can eat your car!  One member of our group backed out and their front driver’s side wheel nosed dived into the ditch with the back of the car several feet up in the air.  Thanks to Glen, a local Spring Lake resident for pulling the car out of the ditch with tow chains and his pickup truck. 😊 He asked that 6 in our group hop in the back of his truck as blast weight and it worked!  Luckily the car was drivable.  The event added to the adventure of the day.