Lakes Trail — Sunday, May. 6, 2018

South Cascades > Mount St. Helens

My missus and I dragged two reluctant kids,and an agitated toddler early morning from Seattle to explore this spring time hike recommended by Craig Romano, the hiking guide author. In short we were not disappointed (well we didn’t see any Elk, so there’s that). It’s a great drive from Seattle, made good time, Toledo is cool but as you get closer to the mountain the views just seem to get steadily better as you turn another corner. The view from the Forest Learning Center in particular is breathtaking on a clear day (like today). The hike itself starts right by the boat launch at the boat launch parking lot, we spent a few confused minutes on the boardwalk after starting down an ADA trail. Clean bathroom and ample parking you need a Forest Pass. Well laid out hike that is a shallow trench for a lot of its length, sticking close to the lake shore it curls around and around and climbs and descends again and again, one of those “is this really only 300 ft of elevation” hikes that lets you catch your breath before pushing you higher. It was humbling just driving to the Mountain but then tracing the route of a lake that exists because of the last great eruption was almost surreal. Almost all of the route is young forest, small thin trees, alders (?) and bushes and then huge tree corpses spread across the landscape, giants snuffed out in a moment, as you walk forward the peak in the diminishing distance ahead of you it is littered with seemingly hundreds of downed trees all felled in the same explosion, a giant wave that raced up and over this giant peak. My mind kept trying to picture what it must have been like before the maelstrom. You skirt around the edges of a lake birthed by the eruption and landslide at Mt St Helen’s and it looks like any other picture perfect PNW lake. Lots of little snakes and lizards, butterflies galore, muddy patches, streams, a somewhat hairy waterfall crossing that is probably a puddle at other times but I was wet to my ankle. The trail itself is an easy hazard free walk for much of the time but the underlying wire screen is pulling up in spots and is torn up in a few areas especially after the falls but nothing a little extra care won’t solve. Saw some deer scat and heard some bellies but no hoof encounters. Saw a large hawk with a white chest and head but not an eagle, it swooped down and plucked a fish from the lake and proceeded to circle the lake while we fruitlessly tried to snap a photo. There are only two places where you can get close to the shore without incurring a fine due to the fragile landscape. We turned back at the base of the tree strewn peak for a six mile hike because the rain started to build to a storm, lightening and thunder allowed me to teach my kids about light and sound speeds and how to gauge the strikes distance, five miles away. now three miles, two miles we ended our hike running back to the car, wet and happy. Highlights for us were the views and the smiles while our kids highlights were the lizards, the skeleton and DQ in the road back to Seattle.