Greenwater
14 miles (including Echo Lake)
1600ft Elevation Gain
Mt. Baker Snoqualmie National Forest, near Enumclaw
Good for Dogs
NW Forest Pass
Rating: Easy
We did this hike back on May 4th and 5th, but then got really busy with my birthday and a bunch of other stuff and I got distracted. Chris, our friend Katie and myself left Seattle around 8:45 and drove out the Greenwater Lake trail head. This was our first real overnight of the season, and unfortunately Chris and been having really bad acid reflux, so we were moving pretty slow. The hike out was lovely, it was warm but not hot, and while there were quite a few people on the trail it didn’t ever feel crowded.We got to the end of the second of the two Greenwater Lakes, and a man with a struggling campfire told us he had tried to get to Echo lake and had been unable to go the entire way due to snow. Being the stubborn, independent types we are we decided we needed to see it for ourselves. After all, this man had a tea-cup sized dog, so obviously he was insane, not to mention he had shorts on so maybe the “snow” was just slush that was 100 yards long and we’d be able to cross it easily.
We could not.
We went another 1.5 miles before we hit the snow. It started out manageable enough, the trail was easily spotted, but after about ¾ of a mile of increasingly deep, often slushy snow, we were done and decided to turn around.
Luckily just after we had passed the guy who said there was snow ahead Chris spotted a campsite that he said looked amazing. I couldn’t see it through the brush, but after we turned back we decided to head for that spot. The campsite ended up being on an island where two forks of the greenwater river converged and dumped into the lake. We had to scramble across some fallen trees, but oh man. BEST. CAMPSITE. EVER.
We spent the night drinking wine we had packed in, and playing camp Disney trivia (that’s where we bring some Disney trivia cards but not the whole board game). Then as we went to bed we listened to an audio book of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and recordings of Vincent Price and Basil Rathbone reading selections from Edgar Allen Poe. In all a pretty awesome evening. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful.
WTA Link: http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/greenwater-lakes
We went another 1.5 miles before we hit the snow. It started out manageable enough, the trail was easily spotted, but after about ¾ of a mile of increasingly deep, often slushy snow, we were done and decided to turn around. Luckily just after we had passed the guy who said there was snow ahead Chris spotted a campsite that he said looked amazing. I couldn’t see it through the brush, but after we turned back we decided to head for that spot. The campsite ended up being on an island where two forks of the greenwater river converged and dumped into the lake. We had to scramble across some fallen trees, but oh man. BEST. CAMPSITE. EVER.
We spent the night drinking wine we had packed in, and playing camp Disney trivia (that’s where we bring some Disney trivia cards but not the whole board game). Then as we went to bed we listened to an audio book of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and recordings of Vincent Price and Basil Rathbone reading selections from Edgar Allen Poe. In all a pretty awesome evening. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. WTA Link: http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/greenwater-lakes
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