Saturday looked like a near perfect weather day for a "July" hike with forecast high of 70F at 4000ft and partly cloudy. Based upon recent trip reports, Echo Lake looked like a nice day hike destination. We knew this trail has not been logged out and it showed!
Except for the 15 logs over it, the trail is in good condition from the trailhead to the double bridge over the Greenwater River at 2.6 miles (SE of the upper Greenwater Lake). After that, the main trail obstacles are the 55 trees on/over the trail the rest of the way to Echo Lake. Most are minor step- overs or a few easy duck-unders. At the other end of the spectrum are the logs that require crawling under, leaving the trail to get around, pushing through a web of branches, and lastly the few that are large logs with branches on steep slopes that would generally be called difficult.
The forest provided shade, but it was still warm (I went through 4 liters of water on the hike). At the crossing of Lost Creek, there was a pleasant cool breeze blowing down the creek.
Yes, I selected "Snow Free", because the little snow is melting fast. The first snow patch, a little before the Lost Lake Trail junction, was a short one on a steep slope requiring about 5 kicked steps in the snow to get across. After that, snow patches start about halfway between the Lost Creek crossing and the Maggie Creek Trail junction. None are more than 6" deep and are easy to walk over. The number of snow patches increases starting about 0.7 mile before the lake, but all are easy crossing with less than 12" of snow.
We took the trail down to the campsite when it looked like the trail along the west side of the lake was a mess of logs for as far as we could see. A later conversation with another hiker familiar with the area said the trail along the west side of Echo Lake had not been cleared for years.
At the lake, the two campsites east of the outlet are melted out, but others look to be under snow.
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