West Fork Foss River and Lakes — Saturday, Oct. 24, 2015

Central Cascades > Stevens Pass - West

We did a Saturday overnighter to Copper Lake. The trailhead had about 8 cars when we arrived around 9am on Saturday morning. We didn't encounter anyone on the trail until after we reached Copper Lake. The fall colors have passed and only a bit of them remains (aside from the leaves on the trail). The trail to Trout Lake is super easy along the creek bed. There was nobody camped at Trout Lake either night. After the lake the trail turns up and into switchbacks. There are several sizable downed trees that involve some navigation. Looks like somebody started sawing through one of the obstacles but this is not going to be trivial tree obstacles to remove. When we got to Copper Lake we had some issues figuring out where the campsites are (though there is a wonderful easy to find Toilet sign!). We were the only ones camped at the lake until a couple arrived shortly before sunset and camped further down the lake. There were several groups at Lake Malachite (including one camped right over a "restoration area" sign) and none at Little Heart Lake which is as far as we'd hiked after setting up camp. Copper Lake was wonderful to spend the evening at next to the lakeshore. Beautiful clouds at both sunrise and sunset and super still water. We really lucked out with only a little bit of a drizzle in the middle of the day on Saturday. A beautiful hike and I would love to return - a huge amount of reward for not much effort hiking in. :)