DIRECTIONS: Driving Directions:From Vancouver: Drive for about 145Km along Hwy #1. Take exit #168. Turn right after 200m to Silver Skagit Road. After driving for 4Km, the road turns to gravel road. Ignore the right turn to Silver Lake at 6.1Km. Just before 16.1Km, is the left turn to Eaton Lake. Drive for another 100m on a rough road. There are few parking spots available. You can also park on Silver Skagit Road just at the turn.create
fullscreen
NOTICEBOARD
add_box
Eaton Lake
starstarstarstarstar_border
Apr 28, 2019
Scouting out Grant and Eaton peaks via Eaton Lake Trail approach. This was a surprisingly pleasing forest trail. Lush, well planned, reasonable grade, soft'ish foot bed... I kept speaking out loud how much I was enjoying it... lol.
A light dusting of fresh snow up around 1200m which turned into full winter conditions by the time I was at the lake. Windy and much much colder than the lower switchbacks. Glad I had the full gambit of winter gear with me.
Micro-spikes recommended for the last 150m of gain before the lake under current conditions... I saw a ton of post holing activity but I was fortunate that it was early enough in the morning and cold enough to still have a solid crust on the snow. I had brought my snowshoes but never had call for them.
First bridge is bomb proof, second bridge is missing half the railing and off-level, but has wire mesh on it so no biggie crossing that... the third *cough* bridge... is only a log and a log dam that is still covered by a snow bridge... which I gingerly crossed seeing that others the day/week before were having considerable troubles.. but again I was lucky in that it was fully frozen over.
The lake area is surrounded by steep slopes and runs pretty far back... very nice area to camp I am sure.
I am looking forward to taking on Eaton later this year as a day hike.
Time: 3 hrs up, 1 hr 45 min down.
Aside: Note on one of the last images... apparently there was a cougar headed up towards me at some point... glad we did not cross paths.
Have fun and stay safe and maybe I will see you out there.
Regards,
Rex