John Guilford's Hikes
Lake 22 on 1992-01-18
Date: 1992-01-18
My Alt. Real Alt.
Start: 2:42 900
First Snow: 3:20 1400
Lake: 3:48 2000
Leave Lake: 4:00
Down: 5:05 700
It was a nice weekend (particularly for January) so I went hiking. This
hike as about 5 miles RT. Near the bottom (close to the parking lot) the
trees were pretty drippy and that made me wish I had brought a hat,
although shortly thereafter, the trees stopped dripping and a hat wasn't
necessary. It was warm. I started off wearing a t-shirt, sweatshirt, and
Gore-Tex shell; about 1/2 up the sweatshirt came off and I just wore the
shell and t-shirt the rest of the way. There are a couple of wooden
bridges and walkways near the bottom of the trail. These were rather
treacherous since all the damp made them very slippery. For a ways I was
wondering whether I'd see any snow or not. Looking across the valley, I
could see the snow level was pretty high. I saw a surprisingly large number
of people on the trail, many just wearing sneakers (I was wearing my hiking
boots and gaiters). However, I finally got a small patch of snow. The
patches of snow started getting thicker. About this time, the trail went
through a patch of deciduous trees that gave a good view of the valley (and
clearcuts) as well as of some of the rest of the cascades. Soon the snow
got pretty continuous on up to the lake. It was well compacted by all the
feet that had gone before me. It was mostly easy walking, though it was
slick in places. The lake was frozen over (mostly), though not hard enough
to walk on. I hiked around the edge a bit towards Heather Lake side, but I
didn't have nearly enough time to contemplate climbing over the ridge to
see the other side. The snow covered the brush (mostly) but was thin
enough that your feet kept breaking through and this would have made it
hard going. I was surprised on my way down at the number of people still
coming up. I got down just as it was getting dark, those other people
either had flashlights or would have had a real interesting time coming
down. There was even a couple just starting up when I came out.
Please send comments or corrections to
john_guilford@keysight.com
Last updated on: Mon Jun 8 16:50:16 PDT 2015
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