Lake Lillian was made a possibility courtesy of a trip report I saw saying the road was free of snow to within five minutes of the trailhead. Although I couldn't get the truck (Amy and the girls needed it for a play date) I figured the 'onda would give it a shot and hopefully make it back. The road turned out to be in great shape and was, in most spots, better than the road to our house. (That doesn't say a whole lot for our road.)

At the trailhead, parked in six inches of standing water, we covered ourselves from head to toe with Goretex. It still promised to be a wet trip for me and Dan. (Tokul had to stay home because we weren't sure if Lillian was going to be our destination and the fall-back included too much talus.)

Of the three or four million times I've been up to Lillian before I've never had a problem crossing the creeks at the trailhead. This time the water was running high due to the snow melt so we had to search for a suitable crossing point. By standing on branches, rocks, and doing a quick jump we got across and headed up.

The trail was sloppy, to say the least. The heavy snow pack had left the ground thoroughly saturated so we spent some time scrambling up the steep trail holding on to whatever was at hand. At the first waterfall a huge tree has decimated the trail so we had to find a detour around that, but otherwise there were few problems.

We passed the snow-filled Lake Laura basin and continued up toward Lillian. At the false "summit" the snow became continuous. In spite of the continuing lightening we got out poles and my axe and started the final push. In summer I've done the climb in 40 minutes. It took 50 with snow and the challenging creek crossing.

The lake itself is still frozen, though not solid. Bright blue melt pools have formed near the eastern end and although I ventured out onto the ice I wasn't about to cross. Too bad, too. I've been yearning to see Rampart Ridge in snow, but not this year.

I climbed up to the east a little bit to get out of the rain and wind and stepped onto the rocks. I could see a deep gap between the snow and rock and thought to myself, "Self, that would suck to fall into that." I took off my gloves and clipped them to my sternum strap, then unhooked my sternum strap and watched my gloves fall into the darkness. DAMN.

Luckily, they had fallen only five or six feet and it looked like there might be an access hole near them. I jumped back onto the snow to get closer and started to fall. Amazingly, my recent practice self-arresting kicked in and I was able to stop myself without going all the way to the bottom. (Don't worry, it was only another 20 feet to the end of the slope.)

I hacked at the snow and retrieved my gloves. Disaster averted. Heck, even the rain had stopped. It was turning out to be a good day after all.

We ate lunch and started down. Armed with the knowledge that I could stop myself if I lost control I glissaded down much of the snow. It was a bit bumpier than I might have liked, but still quite enjoyable.

We made a quick detour down to Lake Laura to see it. The ice there is already quickly melting off with lots of open water. The waterfall from the Lillian outlet was roaring.

Mt. Rainier made a brief appearance against a blue sky streaked with clouds. Trillium were everywhere and it looked like early, early Spring.

The trip down was easy and quick, until we got to the stream crossing again. We looked downstream, but two creeks come together so that was really impractical so we wound up around the same spot we had crossed earlier. Dan suggested a jump across landing on a rock on the far side. It seemed too dicey for me so I stood back while he made the attempt.

It didn't go well.

Later, Dan described the moment after take-off when he knew he wasn't going to make it and that there was nothing he could do about it. His foot slipped off the wet, mossy rock and his knee slammed onto the pointy bit of the rock. Earlier we had talked about how solid his shoulders had been since the last round of surgeries in 2003 so when he was scrambling out of the ice-cold water I was sure he'd popped one out. No, it was his knee.

After I found a safer way across we scrambled up the bank and busted through some just budding blueberries and found ourselves back at the car. Dan's knee was swelling already so he made an ice pack from a ziplock and snow for use on the ride home.

Two days later it was still numb and the school nurse said he should see a doctor. Amy says if I keep breaking people on the Lillian trail (Nick strained something the last time I went up in the snow) no one will want to go with me anymore. That would make me sad.

Total distance was three miles. Elevation gain about 1,500 feet.