Faces Pass {on the trail} // Blanca Lake

UNREAL. It's the only way to describe Blanca Lake itself, the ridiculous drive to get there and the grueling hike. Blanca Lake is one of those iconic PNW locations you see on Instagram all the time and Gina had mentioned that she wanted to go on a hike. It seemed like a win-win.

Hunter picked Gina and I up at 7:30 am sharp to head up to Mt. Baker/Snoqualmie Forest for the hike. When I first put the destination, it had a 10:40 am arrival time which I neglected to tell them until later in the drive. They were appalled when I told them, but we ended up shaving off an hour and finding the trailhead at 9:40 am. We were fine the whole time you guys!

On the way up, we talked and sang and wondered when we would finally arrive.

And we were off!

We knew it was a tougher hike, about 7 miles round trip and 3,300 foot elevation gain, but we were not prepared for how uphill it was.

It just kept going and going and going. At every turn we thought we may round the corner and see the lake. We met some hikers at the highest point where they told us we were about half way. HALF WAY. The second half was more of a descent (which I knew we'd have to climb on the way back). Along the way, we came across a small pond and for a split second, we all thought that this was Blanca. Needless to say, we were extremely disappointed and then realized the trail continued.

Once we caught a glimpse of aquamarine blue, we picked up the pace towards the lake. There was this awkward stretch where the foliage turned tropical and the humidity increased. Super weird.