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A beautiful 9 mile hike topped off with a gorgeous view of pack wood lake. I would recommend doing the hike in both summer and winter for different experiences.
Beautiful lake, we'll worth the 10 mile rt hike. The trail is well maintained and easy to follow. There was a lot of bugs so you may want to bring some sort of repellant.
A must see in Washington. This is an easy hike, it's just long- so if you're looking for something quick this ain't it.
But all the steps are 100% worth it for the views of this glacier lake!
COVID 19 Safe hiking. Packwood Lake is beautiful and a lot larger than I had imagined. We followed the map's GPS to the parking area. There is a $5.00 parking fee which we were very happy to pay. No envelopes so we wrote our vehicle licenses plate on a paper and added it to the box with everyone else’s. The GPS said park and hike in. It is a 4.5-mile one way each way in was 9- ish mile total round trip. The day we went it was raining, Not fun. Although the scenery was amazingly beautiful. This would be much better on a sunny, not cold day. The lake is huge and breathtakingly gorgeous. We fished for an hour and decided to head back. We were told by people we passed that there is an ATV trail that is better to hike in. Next time. We passed a family that was hiking with children at were 8 years and up. We passed flowers I had never seen the likes of. Beautiful. And a frog that blended into the leaflitter so well that it was almost impossible to see even in the picture. This is an all-day hike. Go on a sunny day and bright a lunch and drinks to enjoy.
I've been told many times to hike Packwood Lake and would not be disappointed when you get to the lake. My friends were right. It was one of the most breathtaking views I've ever seen.
Getting to the starting point of the trail is straightforward, and there's plenty of parking. Also, there's a pay station near the trailhead. The cost is $5 for the day, and there is a bathroom on site. I went on a Friday morning (10am) and it wasn't packed. When I finished the hike around 2 p.m., the parking lot got a little more crowded.
The hike in total is about 9 miles round trip. I will advise that the bugs (mosquitoes) are awful! I highly suggest bringing bug spray and wearing long, comfortable clothing. The trail itself is very well maintained. Some parts of the trail are flat, and other times, there are steep inclines and declines.
Overall, this was worth the mosquitoes being annoying. This was a well worth hike to accomplish. If you have time while in Packwood, stop by, get your boots on, and take a hike!
