Twin Peaks Trail

I hiked the Twin Peaks Trail with Bella today. I was hoping to get a glimpse of whatever fall colors might still be up there. I also wanted to see what the snow level is on the trail.  It was supposed to be raining but it wasn't raining at home, so I thought I'd see if I could beat the rain. However, it was very foggy, and the mountain peaks were totally obscured in clouds. Most of the fall colors are gone now and the trail was covered with golden leaves. Initially we were hiking in the clouds but as we climbed, we walked out of them. At first, we could see the Twin Peaks that are now covered with snow. But the trail to the first bench overlook was totally free of snow. It was wet but not very muddy anywhere. The view from the overlook was gorgeous with the deep turquoise water of Lake Eklutna. The mountains around the lake were mostly covered with clouds, but I could see that they had a heavy snow cover above the tree line. Bold Peak was completely covered with clouds. We met a couple of other hikers and a very nice dog at the first bench. To my surprise they said "Oh, that's not our dog. He just followed us up here." I took a couple of pictures of the dog so I could post them on the hiking Facebook pages. They descended and the dog went with them. Bella and I continued on to the second bench. As we climbed, the clouds started closing in on us. Near the bench I started seeing small patches of snow along the side of the trail. By the time we reached the second bench, the clouds had completely obscured Twin Peaks, and there was considerable snow on the trail that continues up to the upper overlook and Pepper Peak. So, we turned back at that point. Bella and I ran all the way down. We did find a couple of stands of golden trees near the trailhead. At the trailhead we found that same stray dog walking around. He had on a pink shock type collar but no ID. When I got home, I posted on Facebook and soon after, his owner came and picked him up. It was a beautiful little 5-mile hike and a great workout. Bella got pretty muddy, so she got a bath when we got home.