It seems that Jeff and I have gotten pretty good at miscalculating the weather for our hikes. We didn’t think it was going to rain when we went to Lower Lena Lake, and we didn’t think it was going to be that snowy or rainy at Mount Rainier either. The same problems plagued our hike to Annette Lake on Saturday.
The rain wasn’t such a problem, particularly since we were well-prepared this time and were not staying overnight. The problem was that although Jeff thought it would be a nice low-altitude hike,
there turned out to be a lot of snow on the trail. That made the hike a lot harder and a fair bit less pleasant for me, although we got a couple of
gorgeous views once the rain let up and the mist cleared away a little bit. (The thumbnail to the side links to Flickr, where I’ve uploaded a 1024×768 image (401Kb) that I think would be fantastic as a desktop background. Feel free to download it for personal use only.)
Annette Lake is a charming little mountain lake, fed by a small waterfall. At this time of year it was perfectly still, frozen over with a film of ice and snow. All the same, Jeff and I don’t think we’ll ever go back there. The trail is a very popular one, too popular for our taste, especially since it’s right next to I-90. Although it’s nice that the trailhead is so accessible, we could hear the highway almost all the way to the lake. There weren’t many people on the trail that day, but we did run across a couple of moron mountain-bikers plowing uphill through the snow, even though that part of the trail was off-limits to bicycles. (There are reasons for that, some of which the bikers were learning the hard way.)
On the bright side, I discovered that my regimen of physical exercise has been paying off. My heart went thunka-thunka-thunka instead of pitter-pat, and I didn’t have to stop so often on the uphill climb, at least not until we got into the snow. It was really the packed-down, slippery snow that strained my feet, ankles, and knees by constantly throwing me off-balance. Other than that, I didn’t do too badly.
Next month: Heather Park and Lake Angeles trails in Olympic National Park! The two trails connect and together form a nice 12-mile loop.
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