Lower Big Quilcene to Camp Jolly

We drove up FSR 27 to the Lower Big Quilcene Trailhead and hiked the Lower Big Quilcene Trail to Camp Jolley and back, about 10 mies with 1,200 ft of overall gain. A nice fall day with some light rain.

Views of the Quilcene River along the trail

We also enjoyed seeing some fall color along the trail.

Bridge just past the turn off to Camp Jolly

View of the Quilcene River from Camp Jolly, our turn around spot today.

There are many moss covered trees along the trail.

Some of the fall color, berries and fungi we saw along the trail today:

   

 

  

  

 

Snow Lake

We drove up to Alpental at Snoqualmie Pass to hike the Snow Lake Trail. It felt like fall on the way up and was snowing and wintery as we hiked back down. Lovely hike, 7.2 miles round trip with 1,800 overall elevation gain. There were several streams running over the trail.

We enjoyed the fall colors along the way.

Fall colors and cloudy mountain peaks across the valley.

There was some light snow along the sides of the trail going up the switchbacks.

Icicles along the switchback portion of the trail.

View of Snow Lake from the boulders at the ridge.

The pond near Snow Lake

By the time we reached the viewpoint on the east side of Snow Lake it was cloudy and snowing.

view from our lunch spot

It was foggy and snowing as we hiked out.

A mixture of fall and winter.

 Lovely day to be in the mountains!

El Dorado Pass

We drove out to  the Teanaways to hike up to El Dorado Pass, 5.6 mile round trip with 2,175 ft of gain. The day started out with some views and blue skies, snow started as we hiked back down the trail and a hailstorm hit after we were back in the car.Views to the north 

The only fresh prints since the last snow storm were animal prints. We had the trail to ourselves today.

views to the west as we continued up the trail

Looking up to Teanaway Peak as we got closer to El Dorado Pass

Teanaway Peak from El Dorado Pass, We hiked a short ways up above the south side of El Dorado Pass.

Pano looking east from El Dorado Pass: Bills Peak, Mary's Peak, Judy's Peak and Iron Mountain. Nice spot for our lunch break.

view to the west

Storm clouds gathering over Iron Peak

Mary's Peak and Judy's Peak

Bill's Peak