Thunder Lake, 06/15/2003
Started from the Wild Basin Ranger Station at 7:59. The parking lot was only about half full. It was a beautiful cool sunny morning. The last couple miles before Thunder Lake, the trail became snowy, and near Thunder Lake, the snow was quite deep. We stopped for a drink of water on the log bench in front of the Thunder Lake Patrol Cabin which was manned. Then we walked along the west side of the lake, which was mostly covered with ice, and we marveled at the amount of avalanche debris that covered the icy surface of the lake. Large pieces of trees were strewn up to about 30 feet from the east side of the lake. This came from an avalanche off the side of Tanima Peak. This was an amazing demonstration of the power of an avalanche. Heading back, just below the outlet of Thunder Lake we took a nice picture of a snow wall along the bank of the outlet. We followed the outlet downstream for awhile, before turning left and meeting with the snowy trail. Returned to the truck at about 15:30.