A beautiful sunny morning today had us heading up to Snoqualmie Pass and Alpental to hike up to Snow Lake and Gem Lake. This is a gorgeous hike into the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. 10+ mile round trip with about 2,200 ft overall elevation gain. The trail was icy most of the way and we wore our micro spikes along the entire trail.
One of the many water crossings along the trail, mostly ice, but there is running water.
Icy and snowy trail.
Beautiful snow covered peaks seen on the way up the trail.
Lots of icicles today.
Snow Lake as seen coming down from the pass.
Instead of going to the shore at Snow Lake, we continued on the trail towards Gem Lake, It was very windy here with ripples in the water, and not much reflection.
The trail crosses over this partially iced over creek.
Snow Lake, further along the trail, we will go up over that ridge to reach Gem Lake.
Enjoying the views around Snow Lake as we hike around it.
We were happy that the log crossing only had a light covering of snow and was not icy today!
Along parts of the trail, we had nice views of these peaks over the Snoqualmie Valley
Ptarmigan enjoying the sun.
It was perfectly calm up at Gem Lake. The lake was beginning to ice over, but we were able to enjoy the peaks reflecting in the water.
We headed up the hillside to the north of Gem Lake, and had a beautiful view of Glacier View to the north.
We went part way up Wright Mountain, until the tracks disappeared and I decided the way was too steep and icy for my comfort level. I would like to come back up in the summer when the snow is gone from Wright Mountain to get to the top.
Gorgeous views of the Snoqualmie Valley.
We headed back down to Gem Lake for the views, lunch and more picture taking.
Looking towards the outlet of Gem Lake
More of Gem Lake
On our way out, we stopped to get photos of Wright Mountain reflected in Gem Lake. There are a couple of hikers on top of Wright Mountain, who came up after us.
Heading back down to Snow Lake, seen below.
By the time we reached the shore of Snow Lake, the sun had gone down behind the peaks, and I loved the change in color.
More icicles.
Frozen icy covering running water.
Looking down towards Alpental from the pass on the south side of Snow Lake.
No comments:
Post a Comment