Day Hike - Barclay Lake

 The majority of the drive to the trailhead was along Highway 2 East and was rather uneventful. Once we turned off of Highway 2 then the road went from being paved to gravel. It had some potholes though a high clearance vehicle isn't needed. The parking lot still had spaces though it was clear that it's a popular trail since there were already cars parked along the road from groups staying overnight. A NW Forest Pass was needed to park at the trailhead.

The day started off wet and ended that way. It was raining for the duration of the hike which was a bit of a surprise given our recent streaks of warm weather. Still, it the rain was overall rather light so a light jacket was typically sufficient. Due to the rain, the trail was very muddy in places and slippery at times which worked well with our pace.

At the lake, we took a break. It was foggy so while we could see the lake we were unable to see even an outline Baring Mountain. The fog was starting to burn off on our way back though it wasn't quick enough for us to get a view of the mountain.

Throughout the hike we saw a large number of other groups. A sizable portion of them were backpackers. There was a group of volunteer rangers in training so it's possible that some maintenance is going to be performed on the trail. All in all, I suspect that the weather kept the number of groups we saw down and that once the weather gets nicer that this trail will be packed.