Our second hike of the season was an attempt to go somewhere I had never been before and push ourselves further. Somewhere I had never explored was the wilderness of the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River. The entrance to this area is up Highway 2.
The parking lot was amazingly well groomed. It immediately didn't feel that wild. But quickly as we ascended on the trail it seemed like as wild of a place as any.
The trail wound around the base of the mountains and we were completely enveloped in clouds. We were worried that the predicted sun would not show up, but as the elevation rose so did the cloud cover. Amongst that all was the most beautiful sun breaks that beamed through the trees.
The climb then became more intense. The grade at the beginning of the trail was fairly flat, being an old road. The grade on the final stretch was a long plod, constant grid to the fork between Johnson and Granite Lakes. We had originally wanted to continue out climb to the ridges above. But our time was short and our legs tired so we opted to check out the lake below.
It was disappointing to have to head downward to the bowl between the mountains to reach the lake but once we got there, the lake felt as alpine as a lot of the high mountain lakes I have been to.
We found a place along the lake to have lunch and there were several other parties there enjoying the lake view. Sipping on whiskey and bok choy we were quite the eclectic group.
The trail really peters out at the end. The lake is within site but we had a hard time getting to it. We had to bushwack a tiny bit to make it to the water edge.
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