NWS:...SNOW BELOW PASS LEVELS IN THE CASCADES TODAY INTO TONIGHT...

SNOW LEVELS HAVE LOWERED TO NEAR 4000 FEET THIS MORNING AND WILL
HOVER NEAR THAT LEVEL INTO TONIGHT. SEVERAL INCHES OF SNOW WILL
FALL ABOVE 5000 FEET TODAY INTO TONIGHT. ACCUMULATIONS WILL
GENERALLY REMAIN MINIMAL CLOSER TO 4000 FEET TODAY...BUT A SLUSHY INCH
OR TWO OF SNOW AT PASS LEVEL COULD BRIEFLY CREATE HAZARDOUS TRAVEL
CONDITIONS EARLY THIS MORNING AND THEN AGAIN THIS EVENING INTO
TONIGHT. OUTDOOR REREATIONISTS SHOULD ALSO BE PREPARED FOR WINTER-
LIKE WEATHER ACROSS THE HIGHER CASCADE MOUNTAINS DURING THIS TIME.

Anyone know if Elk Lake is accessible by road at this point?  I'm planning to try it tomorrow and will report back this weekend.

I was blocked by deep snow at 3700 feet (right at the Opal Lake trailhead) on the 2207 road last weekend.

Mark

I don't know about Elk lake. But I heard that on Monday there was just a little bit of snow at 4,000' a few miles north of there at Hideaway Lake on road 5830. There was reportedly one snowpile blocking the road about a hundred yards from the Shellrock Lake trailhead. I'll be up there this weekend to check it out first hand.

Road is clear to within 200 feet of Elk Lake.  Beyond that there are three one-foot-deep snowdrifts that have been breached by at least one vehicle.  I would expect the road to be clear by next weekend especially with this warm weather.  Parts of the road are very rocky and would be challenging in a vehicle with less clearance than a Subaru.

Made it up to Shellrock Lake Friday evening. 5830 is snow free to the trailhead. I heard from someone else that there was still quite a bit of snow in the Hidaway Lake Campground. I would estimate that the area around Shellrock is 99.9% free of snow. We tried trail #700 to the Rock Lakes via Frazier Turnaround today. But the snow cover up that way is probably close to 50% and up to 5' deep. We lost the trail about halfway up the hill and drifted too far east. Amazingly we hit Frazier dead on after our snowy cross country excursion. I knew we were getting close to the road when we found a baseball and an old tire coming up the hill.

Some of our group wasn't doing too well with all the snow, so we ate lunch at the picnic tables and returned to Shellrock. (We didn't lose the trail on the way down.) As we were headed back to Shellrock, we met a couple headed to Rock Lakes. Hopefully our tracks in the snow helped them get to Frazier at least. (We told them which set of tracks to follow.)

No vehicles have been up to Frazier yet. One of the groups at Shellrock said they had attempted driving to Frazier, but had been turned back by large amounts of snow.

The boys didn't get any fish at Shellrock, so we stopped at Harriet on the way home and they were successful there.