Annette Lake

We drove up to the end of the Asahel Curtis Road off of exit 47 on I-90 to the Annette Lake trailhead to hike up to Annette Lake this morning. the hike is 7.5 miles round trip with 1,800 ft of gain, with the majority of the gain in the first 2 miles. We only saw 2 other hikers coming down as we hiked up and had the lake to ourselves. There were quite a few hikers heading up as we were coming down. This trail is in the forest, we saw some lovely moss under the trees at the beginning of the hike, but not much undergrowth.

After 0.2 miles the trail crosses Humpback Creek on a wooden bridge, great views of the creek.

After a mile or so, there were lots of berry bushes, ferns and other plants growing under the trees.

There are a few small streams along the trail, some going under bridges, others running over the trail.

As the trail crosses a few scree fields, we had some view of Humpback Mountain across the valley.

Some shelf fungi growing on a large cut log.

The trail levels out for a while before reaching Annette Lake.

Our first view of Annette Lake

A couple more views along the lakeshore

Most of the clouds were gone as we hiked back down the trail, view of Humpback Mountain.

some of the wildflowers and berries we saw along the trail this morning:

 

Snow Lake and Gem Lake

We drove up to Alpental at Snoqualmie Pass to hike up to Snow Lake and Gem Lake, 10 miles round trip with 2,500 ft of overall elevation gain. The first part of the hike is mainly in the forest, we saw several different wildflowers in bloom.

Before reaching Snow Lake, the trail goes up some steep switchbacks. We saw several nearby peaks through the morning clouds.

On the ridge above Snow Lake we found a nice view point up on a large boulder.

The trail then enters the Alpine Lakes Wilderness and descends over 300 ft down to Snow Lake.

We continued along the lake to the other side for a nice viewpoint.

And continued hiking along the trail.

The trail continues uphill in and out of the forest on the way up to Gem Lake.

View of Gem Lake along the trail looking towards Wright Mountain.

View along the trail to the north side of Gem Lake.

We found a boot path down to the shore of Gem Lake and took a lunch break.

Heading down the trail with Snow Lake below.

View of a pond and Snow Lake below

View to the northeast and distant peaks as the trail continues down.

With the clouds rising, we had better views of the nearby mountain peaks across Snow Lake.

We had a great hike and were happy to find better views of Snow Lake and surrounding peaks on our hike down.

Wide angle view of Snow Lake near the outlet

View of Snow Lake as we hiked up the ridge on our way back to Alpental.

We had a better view of the nearby peaks in the afternoon as we descended down towards Alpental.

We saw several pika in the many scree and talus fields today, this is the only one that stood still long enough for me to get a photo (zoom).

We found this frog on the side of the trail near Snow Lake.

some of the wildflowers we saw along the trail today: