Lily and Lizard Lakes, plus North Butte

Carol, Peggy, Sue, Doug, Udo, Chris, Diane

Twelve Senior Trailblazers made our way to the Senior Center in deep, thick fog. We expected at some point it might lift, but it wasn't obvious when that might happen. We began our hike today at the Upper Trailhead at Barrel Springs. This picture shows part of our group after we stopped for our first shedding of a layer of clothing. The clouds were beginning to part, as you can see here.

Such a pretty sky

We started out really cold, but as we ascended on our hike to Lizard Lake, the temperature grew warmer (and we were working hard, too). Today was one of those temperature inversions where the air closer to the ground was actually colder than the air a bit higher up. This hike takes us first to Lizard Lake and then, if the weather is fine, we can decide to go up to North Butte and then head to Lily Lake.

Ward and Linda pointing in the right direction

Yes, let's go to Lizard Lake first, and then we can decide what happens next. The last time we were here, it was icy and very cold, so today was a nice change from that. Although it's possible to reach these lakes from several different starting points, this one gives us a chance to have a very nice loop hike.

Partially frozen Lizard Lake

Although it was not really cold, you can see that it was recently quite a bit colder, as half of Lizard Lake still has a covering of ice. But as you can see, we weren't in that warm sunshine, so we decided to head up to North Butte, where we would be in the sun and have a view as well. But before we left, I took a picture of this recent beaver action at the lake.

Busy beavers

This tree doesn't have much longer to stand, as the beavers will soon get it to join the one behind it, which was recently felled by the same beaver family, I suspect. Does it make your teeth hurt to look at this? And then we went up to the Butte for lunch.

Samish Bay from North Butte

Once we reached the top, we saw that some fog still remained in little pockets below us, and we realized that as we enjoyed our wonderful lunch in the sunshine, it was probably cold and foggy at sea level. Where we were, everything was perfect; there was no breeze and full sun as we raised our winter faces to the sun.

Happy hikers in full sunshine, a view and no wind

We had a couple of hikers whom we haven't seen in awhile, Fred and Udo. You can see Fred's red cap in the background, but I didn't seem to capture him completely in any of my pictures. Udo has gone out with us a few times before, and it was really nice to see him again. Everyone enjoyed our stop here, but we still had Lily Lake to visit before we started our return.

Ice sculptures at Lily Lake

Once we got there, I saw this stump that I've captured in other seasons, but this time I was captivated by the designs in the ice around it. And on the left, you can see the wrinkles captured in the ice, probably from the wind blowing the water as it froze, layer by layer. Here in the Pacific Northwest, you have greenery mixed with ice, which comes and goes as the temperature changes.

We covered somewhere under nine miles and 1,800 feet of elevation gain and loss before we returned to our cars, happy to have the holidays behind us and our schedule of Thursday hikes begun again. It was a wonderful beginning to the new year!
:-)