I have a hard time remembering what hikes I’ve been on in western Washington. They usually start with trees and often end in fog, and I don’t pay much attention to the overall geography and topology of the many trails we have around here. I just go, usually with friends who do pay attention to that stuff. But what if I documented hikes here on this website? I might understand and remember them better. So here’s my first hike report.
A couple of weekends ago, Saturday July 25, 2026, my family and another family we’re friends with completed a one night backpacking trip to Barclay Lake, which is off US-2 in the north Cascades.
Barclay Lake, Snohomish County, Washington
I’m fairly certain this was my first time at Barclay Lake. We’d originally planned to go to a different lake not far from Barclay but a nearby wildfire led us to switch it up last minute.
Getting there was fairly easy from Seattle. You go to Monroe then take US-2 past Index and around mile marker 41 turn left. We didn’t leave particularly early, like 9am? Traffic on Saturday was not congested but it was busy, and it can be a bit treacherous getting on and off the highway here.
Anyway, we followed a fairly-but-not-too-rough dirt/gravel road for 3 miles or so to the crowded trail head. We were driving a Subaru Forester and a VW ID3 AWD, but we would have been ok in 2WD sedans.
Many cars were at the trailhead, both in the small parking lot and parked for some distance down the road. Lots of folks were here for camping or day hikes, and we were prepared to bail if we couldn’t find a campsite.
This flexibility was possible because the hike is only 2.2 miles long and pretty easy. We got our packs on and took off: 4 adults and 2 8-year-olds.
Despite some complaining from an opinionated youngster and frequent stops, we made it to the lake before long. The trail approaches the lake from its west bank where the shore is accessible and some of the land is fairly flat, sandy, and exposed, and some is dominated by logs and rocks. Barclay Creek exits the lake on this side.
The trail continues east-south-east along the north bank of the lake opposite Baring Mountain, which is imposing and very cool-looking, its peak often obscured by misty clouds.
The trail passes by a beach-like shoreline — the surface being compacted sand and dirt, not soft, and angled down toward the water so not as flat as where the trail first encounters the lake. People fish here.
Keep following the trail past the lake’s east bank, where a wide grassy area begins. I don’t know what kind of grass it is but I imagine for most of the year it’s submerged.
All along the trail there are campsites, and they were filling quickly before noon. We walked a ways and found a site some distance past the lake next to the grassy area, with enough space for 4 tents. We set up our site and then found some things to do.
Note: this is National Forest Service administered land and there was one pit toilet we could find. Allegedly there was another one, but I only heard that from another camper who saw it on a map. That camper also said that another 2 toilets could be found farther down the trail, toward Eagle Lake. We walked for a ways but did not find those, and WTA suggests Eagle Lake is no longer accessible. As an aside within an aside, WTA says the trail to Eagle Lake is on private land but doesn’t explain what changed. I found some info about Eagle Lake and some more here.
All that said, the one pit toilet existed and was… gross, but not like overflowing or shat-upon. My most recent pit-toilet memory is from the Pratt Lake area last year, and Barclay’s was worse than that — certainly odor-wise — but not like orders of magnitude worse. Given that Forest Service ranger staff were severely cut last year (the figure at the North Bend station was from over 20 rangers to 2 — Barclay is managed by Snoqualmie station so I have to assume they were screwed proportionally) it’s a miracle that it’s there at all.
That was quite a long aside. Why? Because, apart from finding a campsite, that’s the other thing you’ll be forced to deal with, depending on your metabolism or whatever. So be prepared and bring a shovel.
Moving on.
So much of backpacking is dealing with routine stuff like filtering water and cooking and cleaning up. Everything’s awkward and takes longer to do.
A number of us went back to the west side of the lake to hang out, explore the rocks and have dinner there. At some point I fell off a log and hurt my ankle a bit, so I went there also to wade into the cold water. The kids came too and we checked out the shore here.
Wading in, the shore was muddy, and weird — at points the shoreline drops off severely, and some treacherous rocks are hidden in it. The mud is sticky and slippery at the same time somehow. I guess that’s normal for mud? But it was of a consistency I find hard to describe, like it should have smelled of sulfur but didn’t. We found a relatively safe part of the shore and the kids had fun getting muddy.
Fire bans in effect, we boiled water with stoves (e.g. JetBoil) and made our camp dinners. Only staying one night freed up weight for some variety. My wife brought tortillas, cheese, refried beans in a tube and hot sauce. It might have been better if we’d put the refried beans tube into the boiling water, but cold it was ok. Our friends had Mountain House. We had an apple. There were snacks.
Then we all hiked back to the campsite and pretty much went to bed. Even though we’d hiked a ways past the lake we could hear campers on either side of us. Barclay Lake is popular.
I found a spot for our bear bag right near some bear cannisters that our neighbors had left out. My branch was not really very bear-proof but I think the main danger here is chipmunks.
The next day we boiled more water for oatmeal and coffee (note: the Trader Joes instant stuff that comes with cream and sugar is great) and took our time packing up. We took pictures and then left.
At some point while taking the kids on a walk my wife had hit her head against a fallen log. She was ok too but it’s a reminder that backpacking is not without risk. We had both been injured on this hike, though between wading in the cold water and some Aleve I myself was fine.
There’s only 500 feet elevation gain to Barclay and the trail goes down and up so you don’t really notice. Kids were much less complainy on the way back and we stopped way less often. We reached the trailhead, found our cars and left.
Overall I’d say Barclay was a very good option for a first family backpacking trip.