Trip Report
Lake Angeles - Heather Park Loop WS
Surreal and complex geologic landscapes, plus winter wildlife snow prints (deer, fox?, bobcat?, rabbit) on this ~12 mile/~4.7K’ gain loop.
Dave Morgan
- Sat, Nov 7, 2020
- Heather Park-Lake Angeles Loop
- Scrambling
- Successful
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- Road suitable for all vehicles
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As the Hurricane Ridge Road was closed (at least when we started), this loop from the ‘Heart of the Hills’ parking area makes a great workout alternate (irrespective of the inside cloud views). The snows (up to ~1 foot in drifts) made finding the trail challenging in the barren areas up high, but another party doing the reverse loop (we did ours clockwise) gave us nice boot tracks for our descent. Very cold temperatures (the scree was frozen in place) plus winds for wind chill in the teens (or lower). A number of places south of Second Top had verglas covered rock and the micro-spikes were greatly appreciated:
Between aggressive goats in the summer (made less concerning by recent goat purges), and avalanche terrain in the winter, this is a great time to do this loop (but not for much longer). With the snow and steep runout in a number of places (plus icy trail) I’d currently call this a winter scramble. Our total time was 8 hours with 3.5 hours for the ascent.