I went back to the same place this past weekend to see how far I could hike. I knew it had snowed a bit there, but I wasn't prepared for the sheer volume of snow the mountains had already received.
Even with chains, the road is getting a little too treacherous for my little car, so this may be the last time I go up there before the summer thaw.
There was only a few inches of snow at the trailhead, but as I climbed up it got deeper and deeper. I was only able to hike around 6 miles because I was already sinking into the snow over my knees. After a mile of slogging through that sort of snow, I was getting exhausted and decided to turn back. Also, the trail was getting harder and harder to make out. I was hiking alone (as usual) and didn't want to risk injury since nobody was going to be hiking those trails.
Here are pics of some of the same places as those shown in the first post>
This is the view of the valley with the lake at the bottom and Mt. Shuksan in the background. You can't see much of it because of the cloud cover.
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This is the lake with the chalet just visible to the middle and left.
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I didn't get up high enough for Mt. Baker to appear.....or maybe it was just hidden behind the clouds.
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When I got back down to Bagley Creek the going was much easier, as there was less snow and other people had hiked there.
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The little waterfall from the first post looked a bit different this time.
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