8 Mile Lake Winter: 6 December 2020

 Winter Hike / Snowshoe


We started planning this for 2 reasons, seeing part of the Enchantments without permits during off season, and hopefully seeing no crowds during Covid.

My friend and I arrived at Bridge Creek Campground on Saturday night around 8pm, there was one vehicle parked at the closed campground, hence we parked on a flat spot that was cleared by a snow plough.

I must admit sleeping in an SUV is nice :)

We started at 5.24am on Sunday, temperature around 25F, it was cold!

To get to 8 mile trailhead was about 3 miles and just over 1200feet of elevation on the road.The road was snow packed but icy in spots, hence we put on microspikes, we also carried snowshoes.

We reached the 8 mile trailhead at 6.50am, still dark, but early light was visible, we had some water, and a quick snack, and continued on the 8 mile lake trail with microspikes. The trail was easy follow with recent bootpack.

Around 8am we saw some sun rays light up clouds over the enchantments, we took some pics and since the trail was fairly hard packed with morning snow / ice we continued, passing several small semi frozen streams, and a bridge.

Lot of rabbit footprints on the snow :)

We reached little 8 mile at 9.30am, only to see a frozen a lake!

At this point we had to put on snowshoes and break trail, the snow was about about a foot+ deep, and stepping over the boulders was not fun, as we got our snowshoes into some holes. Some of these were caused by lightly covered boulders and fallen trees.

The landscape changed quite a bit with burnt out trees and thick brush hitting us as we slowly made our way for the 0.56mile remainder, reaching the base of the hill before the lake, we found that the trail goes around to the creek on the left, a huge fallen tree and mixed snow blocked our path, and the creek was raging below. Having already post-holed with snowshoes, we thought this would not be a good path.

Having seeing some boot prints heading to the right, we followed those, the top of the hill is only about 110feet+, but with more fallen trees and more post-holing on boulders, we decided not to continue further.

Around 10.30am we started back to Little 8 mile, finally around 11am the sun hit our backs, providing a warm welcome!

We ate lunch at the little lake, and made an easy hike back to the trailhead by 1pm.

Walking down the road, clouds that we saw around 10am had come in closer, and within a few minutes it was whiteout time!

At this point though, we were less than an hour away from the car, and continued on a relaxed pace.

We reached the cars and 2.10pm, warmed up, and started the drive back to Seattle.

The drive on Icicle Creek road was beautiful, icy roads, but with fresh snow, it was enchanting :)


Happy trails.


Total mileage: 12.65miles

Total Elevation: 3500 feet.







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