Packwood Lake — Friday, Jan. 31, 2003

South Cascades > Goat Rocks

Certainly a sign of an unusually warm winter when one can hike into packwood lake on the first day of february..... the groundhog may or may not see it's shadow today, but winter (at least in the pacific northwest) is pretty much over..... we were the only ones parked at the access area.. no snow until you get up near the high point of the hiking trail and the snow over the trail was a few inches deep at most, but even that was very sparse.... and there was one blowdown, but it was very easy to negotiate.... Lake is totally ice free (still a bit green from glacial melt) and the snow line looks to be about 500 feet vertical above the lake, but it doesn't look like there is any depth of the snow until you get up another 1,000 feet or so... (packwood lake elevation is just under 3000 feet)......... Trail access parking is at about 2,000 feet of elevation.... in a normal february the snow line is at around 1500 feet and you can't even get to the parking area without a snowmobile or cross country skis, so being able to hike into the lake on Feb. 1 without being fully winterized is very, very unusual...