Independence and North Lakes — Thursday, Nov. 6, 2003

North Cascades > Mountain Loop Highway

My brother and I Headed up the five mile Coal Lake Road off The Mountain Loop Highway, near Big Four to the Independence Lake trailhead. A little snow on the side of road, but road is clear. Water running down road during heavy rains caused a couple of deep ruts, but not too bad. We walked the one mile trail to Independence Lake. Very little snow on the trail, to this point. Independence Lake had about an inch of ice on surface. Two inches of snow at the Lake. Headed straight up steep switchbacks on North Lake Trail, which is mostly snow-covered. Small ponds and lakes before last leg to saddle are frozen over: Very picture-worthy, with several peaks in background. Eight hundred foot descent to North Lake is very icy in spots, but plenty of handholds are available. Many frozen waterfalls along trail. View of Glacier Peak and others was magnificent from the saddle on this sunny day. North Lake is not yet frozen, and very photogenic right now with the snowy shores and reflections. On the way back we did a five minute scramble to a flat rock at the very high point of the ridge. It was a knife edge, straight down hundreds of feet on the other side. The view from here was incredible: Baker, Three Fingers and too many more to identify. Very enjoyable day hike.