Lake Dorothy - Alpine Lakes Wilderness

Since we had a wedding Saturday night, instead of going rafting this weekend, we decided to go
for a hike. Sunday morning We headed out to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area near Stevens Pass. The Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area has over 700 alpine lakes in it and Lake Dorothy is said to be the largest at over 2 miles long.
To get to the trail head we had a 9.5 mile drive on FS Road 6410 along the Miller River. The first several miles up the road were pretty easy going but one we got about 5 miles in last year's storm damage slowed us down. There were several places where the road had been either washed out from the river below of taken our by slides from above. I was actually surprised at how much of the road had been cleared and graded since the only thing on this road after 4-5 miles is the Alpine Lakes Trail head. Even though the road was mostly cleared it was still a pretty rough go in places. There were several stretches with good sized rocks and ruts to negotiate. I didn't need 4wheel drive but clearance could be an issue for cars making this trip. Of course I felt sort of like a wimp when I arrived at the trail head and parked my truck next to a mud covered Honda Civic with cute little flower stickers on the back window (I wonder what the bottom of the car looks like!)
The hike to the lake is only two miles then it continues two more miles along the lake. The trail to the lake was also in similar condition to the road. It was in great shape except for some areas that took some work to get through. We were slowed down by several fallen logs and debris covered trails. Once we reached the lake and the mouth of the river the trail disappeared in to the river. We spent the next few minutes whacking bushes and hopping rocks in the river to get back onto trail.
Once we reached the lake Maggie and I climbed out on the massive log jam at the mouth of the river and took some pictures of the ice covered lake. There was quite a bit more ice left on the lake than I had expected to find in June. Though we could only see about half the lake from where we were but from what we could see it's beautiful. We found some rocks near the shore to sit on and had some lunch and let Lily explore the snow and everything else she could get at. After lunch we worked our way back down the trail and eventually made our way down the mountain and back home.