Day Hike - Margaret Lake

Great day on the trail to Margaret Lake and Mount Margaret, but smoke was heavier than expected which dampened the views and irritated several people. 

Some quick notes: 

*There is a ~3 mile dirt road to the trailhead, but any vehicle should be suitable; there are some big potholes, but you can avoid them. 

*There is no toilet at the trailhead (so you might want to stop at Snoqualmie Pass Visitor Center). 

The trail was in good condition with no issues. I was very glad to have my GPS map app because there were some trail-finding and intersecting trail issues. First, the trail, does not start from the parking lot. You have to walk down the driving road ~100 yards to reach it.

The trail is pretty steep initially, and there is soon an option to take a less steep, but longer, path (that is, stay on the old logging road). We took the shorter path. There are occasional side paths, and I ended up taking a few steps down the wrong path more than once. The forest is thick initially, so there are no views. But once you are about a mile in, there are a few breaks which give great views of surrounding mountains and Lake Keechelus, but the smoke was heavy so there was no chance of seeing  Mount Rainier! In this area, there were also ripe blueberries! Until peak elevation is reached, you are climbing on the slope right above I-90. I was worried that there would be constant highway car noise, but there was none at all! 

The trail is mostly shaded, which we were thankful for, as it would have been quite hot otherwise. 1500 ft elevation gain in 2.1 miles was no joke; lots of switchbacks. There are no water sources until you reach Margaret Lake. 

When we reached the trail split before descending down to Margaret Lake, our party discussed, and decided to split up (we had discussed the potential to split by email before and in the parking lot. Both parties had a print out of the roster and emergency contact numbers, a paper map, and GPS maps). One person wanted extra time at the lake to swim, so half of the party directly went the final 0.6 miles to the lake. The other half continued on  to the peak of Mount Margaret, which was another 0.6 miles and  ~425 ft additional gain. Most of that gain was in the last 0.2 miles, so it was very steep and challenging (going up and especially down), but the view was amazing and well worth it (again, it was smoky, so not as good as it could have been). Those of us who went to the peak, then went down to join the others at the lake. 

A Discover Pass or Northwest Forest Pass is not needed for parking; but you are supposed to fill out a self-issue permit by the trail marker sign in the parking lot, and hang the top half on your backpack. Bring a pen in your car, because there often isn't one in the box with the permits. Today, there were no permits in the box! However, there was a piece of notebook paper, and people were making entries for their groups, so I did the same. 

Several people noted  multiple times that they were bothered by the smoke (eye or throat irritation or headache). I had been monitoring this on the GoogleMaps air quality map, which showed the air quality improving on the days leading up to the hike, but then bumped back up the day before the hike. According to their rating (from my check when I got back home), the air quality was ~50-70 (where 0-50 is good and 51-100 is moderate). But it felt  worse than that. It definitely was not too heavy to call the hike off, but I would have warned people to bring a bandana or buff or something they can wet and cover their mouth and nose to make breathing easier.