Greider Lakes

For my next training hike, I opted to revisit Greider Lakes in the Morning Star Natural Resources Conservation Area.  The day started out mostly sunny at the trailhead on Spada Lake, but as I reached the pair of alpine lakes, the clouds had come in and greyed everything out.  Of course, as I headed back down the trail, the skies opened up again.  For a second straight hike, I was foiled in being able to capture the beauty of  Washington's alpine lakes.  

But, the point of this hike really was to assess my readiness for a multi-day backpack to Glacier Peak Wilderness next month.  The sole purpose was the test of a 9.2 mile round-trip hike with 2500 feet of elevation gain, most of which comes over 40 switchbacks that cover 1.5 miles of trail.  Much less crowded than Serene Lake, I only saw about 50 hikers in my 6.5 hours on the trail.

There were some awesome wildflowers to enjoy along the trail as well.  With a book that Suzanne recently gave me, "Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest", I was able to identify the following:

• Dwarf Dogwood
• Red Columbine
• Foxglove
• Common Dandelion
• Daisy (Not sure what kind... would need a better picture to identify)

Little Greider Lake

Big Greider Lake

GPS Info

Here is the data from the GPS unit:

Maps

This Leaflet Map is provided by GPS Visualizer

Elevation Profile

This profile is provided by GPS Visualizer

Coordinates and other details

Mileage:	9.2 Miles
Elevation	2537 Feet
Time:	6:45:56 (total), 4:40:50 (moving)
Average Speed:	1.36 MPH (total), 1.96 MPH (moving)
Trailhead Coordinates:	47.9741, -121.6136

The GPX file can be downloaded here.

Photos and Videos

Photos are available at this album, while a YouTube video is available here.