Rainy and Blue Lake hikes

Rainy Lake hike: an amazing bang for your buck hike. 2.1 miles and 150 ft of elevation gain along a paved pathway in a beautiful forest leads to a glacial lake. Multiple dramatic waterfalls pour fresh snow melt into the turquoise waters. We thoroughly enjoyed this one as a warm up for the next hike. Next we headed to Blue Lake 5 minutes down the road. This was one was longer and steeper than Rainy Lake at 4.7 miles and 928 ft elevation gain but was absolutely gorgeous. About ⅔ of the way up we came around the corner to a billy mountain goat on the trail. All of us were startled and we paused to let everyone calm down. Once we realized he was probably just curious we slowly walked past him and then continued on. Normally we would have waited for him to move on (he wasn’t going anywhere), or give him more space but there was no safe way to go further off trail. Later we heard some people had come across a family of them including 3 yearling kids. We’re not sure if this billy was a part of that group or not, but we really enjoyed seeing him. The last approximately 300 yards was still mostly snow and ice which made navigating a bit slower. It was all worth it to see another glacial lake. This one was still mostly iced over since it was a higher elevation but it was gorgeous. We had some very nice people enjoy our wooden signs and take candid photos of us.

Once back at the truck we drove to Winthrop, Washington. A small town of 504 people, the Main Street is maintained in a historic fashion and resembles how the town looked when established in 1883. We were pleasantly surprised at the high quality and modern offerings at both the restaurant we enjoyed dinner at as well as the lounge we grabbed a cocktail from. The lounge had very unique combinations and had a separate menu for people willing to go outside typical comfort zones. I ended up getting the “day of the dead” from this menu and it definitely was a delicious experience.Read more