Our first hike/camp in the snow ever and boy, was it snowy. The trailhead would have been difficult to find were it not for the little blurb from WTA's site. First mile or so was snow free with very well maintained stairs and bridges. We had some knock-off yaktrax called "snow trax" from Costco, but these were pieces of crap. Came off every few steps. Would definitely recommend bringing your trekking poles and some micro spikes. The trail was covered with snow about 2 miles in, but we were able to find our way until we got to the talus field just before the lake. We thought we missed PCT and Surprise Lake junction so we backtracked. That didn't look quite right either so we turned back around. By now it had taken us nearly 4 hours to hike 4 miles (!) and we were starving and starting to get cold. Turned out we just needed to go a little farther because Andy spotted a cut blowdown (evidence of trail maintenance). Found the junction and were on our merry way to Surprise Lake. It was beautiful and half frozen. We had the whole lake to ourselves. Set up camp right by the lake and stomped the snow down to make a spot for our tent. The hike up really tired us out so after eating, we crawled in the tent and slept. And slept. For 15 hours! Hah. We'll make it to Glacier Lake next time. Night time temps reached 27 degrees F and it was snowing/freezing rain the entire night.
The only people we saw was on our way down about 10 minutes from the trailhead. Hopefully they were able to follow our tracks.
