Off to Hike to Mirror Lake

We were up by 6:30am, and I cooked a breakfast of eggs, sausage and toast.  I knew we were going to need extra fuel for today's hike to Mirror Lake.  By 7:30am we had our lunches packed, our backpacks loaded and were off for an adventure.

The drive to the trailhead was over an hour.  It wasn't that far but the last 7.1 miles were on a rutted dirt road that kept our speed under 10MPH most of the time.  Up until that stretch of road we were on the old road to Stampead Pass.

We arrived at our parking area at 8:44am, which was at the bottom of an old logging road.  It was impassable so we walked up the steep hill for a half mile to get to the trailhead.

No signage, just a pile of rocks to welcome us to the start of our hike.  We hiked a winding uphill trail for a half mile until we reached Cottonwood Lake, the first of 3 lakes we would see today.

 

There were dozens of small streams to cross and great views with each turn.

Along our hikes we've seen many paw prints on the trails.  Today Terri saw a very fresh print and asked what it was?  I told her it was too small for a bear and to big for a raccoon.  I didn't know for sure but now that I'm sitting in my easy chair my guess is that it was some kind of cat.

We were the first ones on the trail this morning so I guess it wasn't hungry yet.  We'll start carrying our bear spray from now on.

We  came to the Pacific Crest Trail so I knew we were getting close to Mirror Lake.

Around a bend in the trail and there it was, Mirror Lake.  As we walked the perimeter of the lake we could look down into the crystal clear water and see rocks and logs a clear as if they were on the surface.

We stopped for a break and had a granola bar and some water.  After our break we continued South on the Pacific Crest Trail.  I had read about a waterfall from the outflow of the lake and wanted to go on the trail until we could see it.

I climbed down the falls to sit on a rock in the middle of the flow while Terri kept watch from a sitting rock up above.  The falls came to an abrupt edge and the flow went down to someplace I couldn't see below.

Our view from this location looked down onto a lake in the valley.  It was time to turn around and head back.

Russ and Terri resting on the shore of Mirror Lake.

 

Todays hike: 4.5 miles -  8:44am to 12:00 noon

 

I'll end today's blog with my two favorite photos from today.  My favorite wildflower, the Trillium.  And of course, a dead tree shot.