[ALW Hiker]

My off-trail buddy and I headed out this morning to see if we could reach Dream Lake. We thought this might be the perfect time of year, when we could utilize the creek bed in Big Creek to make part / most of the ascent to the lake. The creek bed was great, but as an unexpected side bonus, we found decent bootpaths both at the top and bottom of the route. We reached the Big Creek bridge in about 1:30 from the Taylor River (Snoqualmie Lake) TH. Then it took us about 2:10 from there to reach Dream Lake. We found the trail heading up fairly quickly, and it wasn't too hard to follow to the small camp just before the brush - with old garbage everywhere. From here, we saw a path that seemed to head straight into the brush, so we dropped down into the creek at this point instead. The creek scramble was awesome - fun climbing over the rounded boulders and no problems going around all the little pools. Eventually wer came to a small slabby headwall. We scrambled up this, but then encountered some larger obstacles and went into the woods climbers left. This worked, but got very steep and somewhat brushy, so we eventually dropped back right to the creek, until we got cliffed out in the creek and crossed to the other side. At this point, we were almost to the lake but found an upper trail that we didn't know was there, which took us right to the lake. Turns out the upper trail leaves the creek in the middle of the brushy section, before you reach the headwall. We figured this out on the way down by following the trail from the lake. After some lunch, we bushwhacked to the top of a hill SE of the lake to see if we could see Pothole Lake. We saw the bowl it was in, but it was really brushy and a ways away, so decided to leave it for another trip. We also scoped out the route up to Smith Lake, looking for the forested rib to ascend west of Dream Lake. All in all, a much nicer trip than expected. We got pretty scratched up, but that was mostly whacking around toward Pothole, and not finding the upper trail on the way up. I'd say now is an ideal time to visit Dream Lake.

Big Creek Falls from the bridge

Trail

Treen catching the morning rays

Nice route

Typical creek shot

Small headwall - we climbed straight up this then went left

Impasse in the creek that forced us to the other side

Nice view!

Dream Lake looking toward Mile High (at right)

Lakebagging

Sign

Checking out the climb to get to Smith Lake - see big trees in the middle

On the way down - yes, this is part of the trail