Backpacking East Shingle Creek Lake 6/4/2016

The plan was to hit South Erickson lake, we closed out the season with a trip there last year and thought it would be neat to return.

Well, we went too early. The road was closed about a mile from the trailhead.
I can't tell if this guy was stuck or was just smart enough to know when to call it quits. Probably the latter, he was gone by morning:





We found a spot nearby to park off the road, and hit the trail. The snow was rapidly melting, and the road was like a stream in many places:



The trail was covered in several feet of snow in places, and the little streams were rushing rivers that took some sketchy moves to cross:



We got to East Shingle Creek lake, which is normally about halfway to South Erickson. The trail was really impassable at that point, so we decided to look for a place to camp here. We had already hiked about 3.5 miles by this point.  The lake was almost completely frozen over,


We found a spot, about 8 feet from water to snow on the far side of the lake.



All in all, it wasn't too cold despite the snow. We got lost once on the way out, but were able to find the trail.  Good times!