Colchuck Lake
Central Cascades
Colchuck Lake conditions are challenging as of April 28, 2026. The Icicle Road is closed, adding nearly 8 miles round trip walking to reach the Stuart Lake Trailhead. Snow is present on the trail in several navigable patches, but postholing is possible as it softens. The trail is heavily obstructed by numerous downed trees and settled blowdowns that can obscure the path, requiring strong navigation skills and potentially GPS. Trailhead facilities are closed. The lake view is reported as beautiful, but the extra effort due to road closure and trail obstacles makes this a demanding hike.
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The access road is closed, so you’ll add just under 8 miles round trip walking from Icicle Road up to the Stuart Lake TH (my watch clocked 3.8 miles and 1400 feet elevation gain just for the hike from...
GATE IS STILL OPEN!! Arrived to the trailhead at 7:10 and only one other car was in the parking lot. Trail was a little wet in some spots but the only sketchy part was the second bridge because it was...
Road to trailhead has many many potholes but otherwise good enough, bathrooms unavailable right nowNot much snow on the ground except for some ice patches and a small section of a bridge crossing a ri...
Road is open and snow free! About 15 cars at the trailhead in the morning, filled by the time we returned. Trail is in good shape with well packed snow. Microspikes were helpful but not required. A fe...
We have been longing to visit Colchuck Trail for a long time. We heard it was incredibly beautiful, but seeing it with our own eyes was still a breathtaking surprise.We drove east from Bellevue via US...
We arrived at about 6:30 and the lot was a little more than half full. We took our time and hit the trail closer to 7 and were at the lake around 10. We started to smell smoke about halfway up and at ...
Great for a sunrise or sunset, but would definitely steer clear for a late (after 7:00am) start due to the foot traffic.
The trail is not in such a dire condition as some of these reports led me to believe. There were very few pieces of trash littered about on the trail. However, their were a number of forgotten belongi...
The lake was so blue and so pretty the trail was pretty clear an gave good views
The trail is a pretty good workout, lots of uphill movement. It's mostly shaded so you don't have to worry about being burned alive from the sun while going up and down (I'm half vampire). I started a...
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