Ira Spring Trail - Mason Lake, Little Mason Lake, Mount Defiance & Island Lake - Rainbow Lake — Thursday, Jun. 19, 2014

Snoqualmie Region > Snoqualmie Pass

Looking at doing a 2-3 day overnighter come first week in July with my ole lady, so I figured this may be a great first backpacking trip for her. I didn't have anything to do Thursday so I figured I'd go for a power day hike and sort of scout out the trail. Left Seattle around 8:20 and was at the TH by 9:30-ish. Not too many cars in the lot, 5 maybe and 1 ranger rig too. The road is great until the split in the road, then you deal with some Godzilla sized potholes, but so long as you go slow they're not bad. The trail is in great shape, the whole way up, nice and dry, beautiful great trail. Mason Creek is flowing higher, but really so long as you're paying attention to your footing you'll be fine. Once on top of the ridge where the split for Bandera Mt. the views of the Snoqualmie Corridor were friggin beautifully AMAZING. Mason Lake is completely snow free, and the campsites are snow-free as well. Refilled my water bottle and decided to try for a peak bag of Mount Defiance, didn't really work out because summer snow hits, and you start post-holing plus I lost the trail I don't know how many times. It was getting to be too much for me so I looked at my GPS and realized that Rainbow Lake was just over the ridge from Mason and Little Mason Lake. Instead of going back down the trail to the split for Rainbow Lake I decided to sort of bushwack my way down the ridge that runs between Little Mason and Mason Lake to the trail to Rainbow. It was all fine and dandy until I actually found the trail, then the patchy melting snow started and I kept breaking through the snow randomly up to my crotch (sorry if too much info haha). I was determined that I wasn't going to let the snow defeat me twice in a row. I finally trudged myself to the lake and was planning on setting up a small camp for an extended lunch and maybe a nap since I was so tired. However the lake was still 3/4 frozen over and there wasn't much dry land in the way either, so I decided to make my way back to Mason Lake to do so. This time I followed the trail. The trail from Rainbow to Mason is all patchy snow, and you'll post hole randomly, not all the time just some random time when you're not expecting it haha. I finally made it back to Mason around 1400, strung up my hammock, cooked myself some lunch and cracked open the beer I brought that I chilled in the freezing waters of Mason Lake. Then I just sat back and let the sun warm my skin next to the lake for the next hour and a half until I started to head back down. All in all great trip, trail is clear all the way to Mason, beyond that...not so much. I have two more trail I'm going to check out in the meantime before our trip, but if not I think the snow will be melted in time for our 2-3 day trip and we'll have a grand time. Until next time Happy 'Squatchin!!