Snow Lake

Some friends came in for a visit/vacation and I took them on a hike.  Good lord, was it awesome.  We drove out to Snow Lake which is about 45 minutes or so east of Seattle near Snoqualmie Pass.  When you get there you park in the Alpental ski area and then find the trailhead.  Oh, and fyi, use the bathroom before you get out there.  Good god in heaven did it smell awful.  For some reason those holes in the earth smell a lot worse than port-o-potties (which are no cakewalk themselves).
So anyway, we found the bridge to Hogwarts when we got there so that was pretty cool.

Run Harry!  It's Voldemort!

The hike up to the lake was really pretty but you couldn't really spend a lot of time looking around.  It was incredibly rocky and there were a ton of loose little rocks just waiting to turn your ankle.  Actually, it's a miracle nobody busted their ass on this hike.  I almost fell on my face three different times from either having a rock turn under me or getting my toe stuck in roots.  Al fell on a rock, L kept stubbing her feet on them.  Not sure about Ethan, maybe he's less spastic than the rest of us.

The overall hike wasn't too hard though until the very end.  You have to go up nine switchbacks at the very top and the last two handed me my ass.  Oof, shouldn't have had that latte on the drive up there.  I think my body was working out all of the caffeine at once. 

Mountain stream

Awesome tree

Tricky rocks

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It was a bit hazy from a fire over on the peninsula

When you finally get to the top of the mountain you then have to hike down about .5 a mile to the lake.  It is so worth it.  They weren't kidding about the name, Snow Lake, either.  There was still snow all the way down to the water in some areas.  Which of course meant that the water was COLD.  I really wanted to go swimming too, after a dusty hike up it would have been awesome to get in the water.  However, decided to go the non-hypothermia route.  There were a ton of dogs swimming though and a few brave (psychotic) humans jumping in.

First glimpse of the lake.  The trails were super crowded since it was Labor Day

Amazing

Headed down the trail

Trying to get a pic of the snow around the lake

Decided I'd be building a house on the ruins of this old one.

At the Lake!  Check out the snow...

Some people were jumping in over in that area

Trying to figure out if it would be possible to bring an inflatable kayak out there.

Crystal clear water.

All in all I would highly recommend this hike.  Beautiful, not too hard, and has a great reward at the end.  It's about 8 miles round trip and the highest elevation you hit is about 4400 ft I think.