Rainy Lake trail greeted us with nothing but snow and rain. The hike was too spontaneous that we didn’t start hiking until 12:45 PM. Service road 5600 was filled with countless potholes where we drove on for 12 excruciating miles. With less than four hours of daylight, we’d be lucky if we could even get to the lake before dark.
Snow level around 1,800’ and deepened the higher we went. It got to be about two feet of snow at 2,600’ but quite manageable with just spikes. We stopped at 3,000′ and turned around with one hour left until sunset. It rained the entire time we were on the trail and it did not stop until after 4 PM on our way back down.
Hiking an hour in the dark back to trailhead seems to have become the latest trend.