Snow and Gem Lakes

I love hiking to lakes, waterfalls, rivers and forests on cloudy days. We decided to hike up to Snow and Gem Lakes near Alpental before enough snow makes the avalanche risk too high for my comfort level.
This is a 10.5 mile round trip hike with an overall elevation gain of 2,500 ft. We were the first ones in the parking lot and didn't see any other hikers until we returned to Snow Lake after hiking up to Gem Lake.

The snow was not very deep and well packed down on the trail so we did not bring snowshoes. We used micro spikes as parts of the trail were very icy, although it was mostly slush by the afternoon.  It was lovely seeing a light dusting of fresh snow on the trees and icicles on the rocks.

more icicles hanging off the rocks

The clouds were low so we did not see the nearby peaks.

Quite a few icicles hanging from the rocks along the switchbacks on the way up to the ridge before Snow Lake.

These icicles were taller than me.

Cloudy view of Snow Lake from the ridge before we hiked down to the lake.

Happy to see there wasn't a lot of snow on the long bridge over the outlet of Snow Lake.

Foggy reflection at Snow Lake

It was quite foggy when we first reached Gem Lake.

The clouds moved around giving us different views at Gem Lake. I loved the ice patterns at the edge of Gem Lake

Gem Lake and Wright Mountain

View of an icy pond and a small portion of Snow Lake as we hiked back down from Gem Lake.

Beautiful shoreline along Snow Lake

The small pond near Snow Lake, the ice seemed so thin, hard to believe someone was able to walk across it.











Another view of Snow Lake as we hiked out of the lake basin.