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: