Summit Lake and Bearhead Mountain

 We drove out to hike up to Summit Lake and to Bearhead Mountain. These share the same trailhead for the first 0.8 mile. This trailhead is at the end of FSR 7810, north of the Carbon River across from Mount Rainer NP.
Most of the hike is in the woods (which was nice on a hot day), we did come across some downed trees.

 There is a small waterfall along the trail, a footbridge goes over the top.

We ran into snow as we neared the lake.

A little over 2 miles from the trailhead, we reached the pond on the east side of Summit Lake, it was still snow covered.

Our first view of Summit Lake, with the ridge we are headed to behind it. We decided to go up the ridge on the regular spur trail on the north side of Summit Lake.

 View part way up the ridge line looking to Bearhead Mountain, Mt Rainier and Summit Lake

 There was still snow on the ridge, but it was easy to find the way up.









Pano to the south from the top of the ridge. Bearhead Mountain, Mt Rainier, Coplay Lake (not seen in the photo, but we could see the top of Mt St Helens):

 Pano to the west, looking over towards the Olympic Mtns in the very far distance:

 Pano to the north, includes Mt Baker, Mt Shuksan, Glacier Peak, North Cascades, Teanaways and Mt Stuart along with Summit Lake below us:

We hiked back to where the trail splits at Twin Lake to head out to Bearhead Mountain. From here, it is 1.8 miles to the side trail going up to Bearhead Mountain.

 There are several views of Mt Rainier on the way up the 0.8 spur trail to Bearhead Mountain.

 We were near the top of the spur trail, before running into snow on the trail

















When we reached the top of Bearhead Mountain, we had fabulous views to the north: Mt Baker, Mt Shuksan, Glacier Peak, North Cascades, Teanaways and Mt Stuart (pano)

And to the south: Mt Rainier (pano)

 some of the wildflowers and other flora we saw along the trail today: