Surprise Lake

Over Labor Day weekend, I hiked the Surprise Lake Trail in the Alpine Lakes Region of the Washington Cascades. The Surprise Lake trail head begins a few miles past Skykomish on the way to Steven's Pass on Highway 2. The National Weather Service was predicting "unseasonably cool" weather in the mountains for Labor Day weekend, so we were prepared with warm clothes, hats, gloves, and rain coats. The trail is approximately 4.7 miles each way, with another 1 mile past Surprise Lake to a smaller Glacier Lake.

The trail begins under power lines that you can hear hissing and crackling. After a short time, however, you enter dense forest. The air was a crisp 50 degrees and fog lingered among the cedar trees along the trail. After a short distance, the trail converges with Surprise Creek and then parallels the creek for about a mile. At one point, you have to use a fallen tree as a bridge to cross the creek.
The entire length of the trail is green and lush. We also encountered a number of large house-size boulders on the climb to Surprise Lake. Many of these even had trees growing out of the top of them.At about two and half miles along the trail begins steep switchbacks and more difficult climbing. Much of the upper trail is rocky and requires careful stepping and concentration. Also about this time on our hike the precipitation started to turn from a fine mist to real big ol' fat rain, so we stopped to put on our raincoats. We were optimistic that the rain would clear and we'd see some mountain views - but unfortunately the rain only increased in intensity over the rest of the day. We met some backpackers on their way down who said that it snowed overnight at Surprise Lake - on August 31!
After a difficult climb, we reached Surprise Lake just in time for lunch. Surprise Lake is a long lake, so we were only able to see one end. The water was clean and clear - no algae, life, or fish growing in the frigid alpine lake. I was a little disappointed since the fog was pretty much socked in and we couldn't tell if there were any mountain views around the lake. It was a nippy 38 degrees at the lake, so we ate our lunch quickly before getting on the move again. We decided to hike the extra one mile to Glacier Lake, which turned out to be a great decision. After gaining a little elevation, the Glacier Lake trail traverses a boulder field with even larger boulders than the lowland area of the hike. We stopped for a few photos then scrambled down the steep hillside for a view of Glacier Lake. Still raining, we stopped only for a moment, took a few photos, saw a number of pikas, then set off on the journey back the car. The jaunt to Glacier Lake was my favorite part of the hike.
A true mountaineer braving the cold and rain at Glacier Lake.
The hike back down turned out to be tremendously more difficult than the hike up. With the continuous rain and quite a few Labor Day weekend hikers, the trail was muddy and slippery. My summer hiking boots weren't particularly well-suited for the wet and muddy trail, but we took our time and each of us only slipped once (quite a feat considering the condition of the trail). With the extra distance to Glacier Lake, we hiked 10 and half miles in all and were feeling a bit weary by the end of the hike.

Though the weather wasn't great, I'm glad I finally made it on the Surprise Lake hike and pushed myself to do a more difficult trail. Next up: Cascade Pass!