Tag Archives: Source Lake

Source Lake Hike, February 2011

Posted on by
Reply

Source Lake Trail
Date: February 24, 2011
Difficulty: 6 out of 10
Distance: 4.8 miles roundtrip
Elevation Gain: 1,400 feet
Time: 3 to 4 hours
Location: I-90 exit 52; Alpental Ski Area
Users Group: Hikers & Leashed Dogs Only
Permits: No Permits Required
Trail Conditions: 12” to 20” of fresh fluffy snow
Hiking with: Mike Curry & Lance Leasure

The Cascades have been receiving snow for the past week and I knew snowshoeing on Friday morning would be perfect timing.  I picked up a couple of good friends, Mike Curry and Lance Leasure at 8:00 a.m. in Seattle and we headed off to Source Lake.  I took our normal route out of town, first avenue to Starbucks by the baseball staduim and onto I-90.  We parked at the last parking lot in the Alpental Ski area and got out in the 18 degree weather.  I brought Macho (dog) along and he got out with us, he stayed busy bothering strangers in the parking lot as we put our snowshoe garb on.

We got about a hundred yards in on the trail when Macho stopped, he had ice balls on the bottom of his paws.  I decided to take him back to the car, because it would only get worse for him the further we went.  There really wasn’t anybody else snowshoeing today, maybe it was too cold or it was a Friday morning….but, there were a few skiers that had their ski skins on.  Besides the cold weather, it was a great day for snowshoeing, tons of fresh snow and the sun was out.  We decided to trek past Source Lake and up to Snow Lake following a couple of skiers.  We stopped near the top of the bowl at 4,600 feet and headed pretty much straight down in waist deep snow.  The snow was deep, but light and actually easy to snowshoe in.  After getting back to the car, changing into some warm dry clothes, we headed to my favorite after hike hangout, the North Bend Bar & Grill for a hot bowl of Jambalaya soup and a cold beer.

Source Lake Snowshoe, December 2009

Posted on by
Reply

Source Lake Trail
Date: December 4, 2009
Difficulty: 5 out of 10
Distance: 6 miles roundtrip
Elevation Gain: 700 ft
Time: 3 to 4 hours
Location: I-90 exit 52; Alpental Ski Area
Users Group: Hikers & Leashed Dogs Only
Permits: No Permits Required
Trail Conditions: Hard pack snow
Hiking with: Linna Freeman, Patricia Chow & Garth Heuchert

We met up at Starbucks, exit 17 off of I-90 determine our hike for the day.  The bitter cold was still hanging around, but…it was going to be a beautiful sunny day.  Knowing that Garth brought along his new MSR snowshoes, I thought it would only be right to get into some snow.  There wasn’t any fresh snow for the last 4 or 5 days, so…and the only place to get into snow right away from the care would be the pass area; Source Lake was the lucky winner.  We put on our snowshoes as soon as we got off the parking lot; it wasn’t really necessary…but they provided the traction needed on some slick areas.

Source Lake, November 2009

Posted on by
Reply

Source Lake Trail
Date: November 22, 2009
Difficulty: 5 out of 10
Distance: 6 miles roundtrip
Elevation Gain: 700 ft
Time: 3 to 4 hours
Location: I-90 exit 52; Alpental Ski Area
Users Group: Hikers & Leashed Dogs Only
Permits: None Required
Trail Conditions: 12” to 20” of fresh fluffy snow
Hiking with: Linna Freeman, Evangeline Yu & Dr. Robert McElroy

We met at our usual Starbucks, exit 17  to decide on what hike would suit everyone.  It was raining all morning, so…we decided to hike Source Lake at I-90 exit 52 at Snoqualmie Pass.  The rain kept coming down and it finally started to change to snow at the pass; as much as I love the rain….I would rather put my gear on in the snow than the rain any day.  Finally snowing now, we exited at 52 and drove pass Alpental Ski area to the last parking lot.   

After putting on the gators and MSR snowshoes we started our snow adventure.  It started deep and just got deeper; we were the first ones on the trail, which meant fresh deep snow.  We followed the main snowshoe trail for a couple of miles and finally started to pick-up some elevation as we got closer to Source Lake.  This is where we started blazing our own trail, at times we were going through snow waist deep high.  After hitting the 3,800 foot level, Dr. Rob and I took turns breaking the trial; even with snowshoes on, we were sinking down over our knees.  Linna and Evangeline were loving life with Rob and I compressing the trail to manageable 6 to 10 inches of snow.  

Staying at the 3,800 foot level, we weren’t on the main trail…but just North enough to get around it and head for the east side.  We had to be a little careful crossing the creek that feeds into Source Lake; there were some mini size crevasse that we had to cross.  After getting on the East side, we couldn’t find the trail at first, so we trudged our way up in search for the trail back to Snow Lake trailhead.  We didn’t find it at first, so we angled our way Southeast through the trees until we hit the avalanche prone area.  Even though the chance of an avalanche was low, we crossed this area with care.  After carefully crossing the open area, we found the trail and we were on our way home.