Unlike most alpine lakes, you can drive to them - though it's not easy. A high clearance vehicle is required to navigate miles of steep, rough logging roads. The lakes are on Weyerhaeuser land that was replanted after the eruption. By now, young trees form a stubble of green on the hillsides. Grasses and other plants have taken hold, gradually subduing the ashy gray.
Fishing is the main attraction at the lakes, though the views are good too.
On a clear day, you can gaze down 2,000 steep feet to Coldwater Lake or into the crater of Mount St. Helens, eight miles away. Mount Rainier and the Olympics glisten to the north. Tradedollar Lake sits in a basin with a band of cliffs above. It's swampy around some of the lake, but there's plenty of bank fishing access. The lake has yielded rainbow trout up to 15 inches long and smaller cutthroat.