The trail starts off on a gated access road, but soon turns onto what appears to be a fairly new trail through some new growth in a logged off area. Once you gain some elevation, there is a nice view of Mount Rainier in the distance and Lake Keechelus with a normal low water level for this time of year. Looking back as you enter the older trees, there is one last glimpse of Rainier .

About two and a half miles in, there is a side trail to Margaret Lake. At this junction, you are at the highest point on this trail (5200 feet). My knees still don’t like going downhill, and there is still plenty of down and up to go, so I decided to save Margaret Lake for another time. Before starting the main descent to Twin Lakes you can see the valley you will pass through on the way to Lillian.

The Twin Lakes have some early snow and are beginning to freeze over. These are really small lakes, and in some places, I would expect they would be called ponds. Past these little lakes, the trail is occasionally hard to follow through the mostly unbroken snow. I was passed up by a young man and his dog, so I am following their tracks hoping that the dog can smell out the way to go, or the fellow has been here before and knows the way.

At the end of the trail, I arrive at Lake Lillian. Unfortunately, although there was the hint of a trail all the way to this point, it was apparently not the main trail. I could see a trail climbing the slope next to the lake, but I was trapped between a shear rock face on my left and a huge boulder on my right. The trail was apparently on the other side of the boulder. On the way back down, I was overtaken by a couple of hikers that I had seen on the trail across the lake. They were curious about how I had gotten on the other side of the boulder, and I wanted to know how they had gotten on their side. We did not figure out where we had diverged on our paths to the lake. I did learn that the trail I had seen them on was very slippery and they nearly slid into the lake, so it was just as well that I did not get there.