The trail begins at St Mary's Glacier Trailhead on a wide, rocky forest road heading northwest. Keep left of all offshoots, and within clearly drawn property lines on each side of the road. The road-trail rises quickly through a high subalpine forest that breaks suddenly across a bridge across the outlet of St Mary's Lake (.45 miles : 10,738'). The trail is somewhat ill-defined but intuitively followed along the NE shore toward the snow field. It narrows on a clearer path through dense willows and emerges on the north shore just below the snowfield.