June Lake — Saturday, Jul. 8, 2017

South Cascades > Mount St. Helens

It's a beautiful day for a hike with friends today. We started up to June lake from parking lot at 9:45 AM and it only took us about 30 meandering minutes to get there. The lake cannot be seen from the trail due to the tall brush close to shore but a side trail cuts through to a nice spot across from the waterfall. We then went on up the hill to connect to the Loowit trail and headed west for Chocolate falls. It's somewhat slow going over the boulders but the trail is well marked with cairns and posts so we didn't get lost. We had good views of Hood and some of Adams while crossing the boulder fields. We enjoyed an early lunch on the rocks above the falls. I took off my footwear and soaked in the stream which was not as cold as I expected it would be. We then hiked back via the winter climbing and snowshoe trail to the Marble Mountain snopark parking lot. That trail is wide and easy. We walked back to our car on the road. Be careful on the way up - there are several dips on the road that are not well marked that can be hard to see in the sun/shade on a bright day. We almost bottomed out on one we didn't see until last moment.