Camas Lake Adventure!

Spring/summer hiking season has definitely started and I have gotten a late start this year. This is the first "real" hike of more than five miles this spring. Dale and I decided to take advantage of this Saturday and venture up to Camas Lake as it is a relatively moderate, short hike (7 miles round trip) to start the season. Leaving in the earlier part of the morning for the fifty mile drive to the trail head put us there about 9:30am.

The trail head is located about 9 miles up Lost Horse Rd

Being the first real hike of the season it took us a bit to get our stuff together which put us hiking by 10am. The trail starts out on an old logging road that turns into a hiking trail after just a short bit. After less than half hour of hiking there are two small creeks that are easy to cross.

The biggest of the two small creeks

One hour from the trail head we reached the rock fields which are close to half way there. (I believe you have cellphone service at this spot) At this point we only ran into a minimal amount of snow on the trail.

Checking the map to see where we are at

The amount of snow definitely kept increasing the father back we got. We reached the two creek crossings that have man made bridges half an hour later at 11:20am.

At this point you are about a third of the way to the lake but the next half mile or so is probably the steepest part of the trip before it levels out a bit into deep snow where we lost the trail as nobody had been up there since the snow.

Deep snow drifts but easy to walk on top of.

 We made it to the lake in just under two and a half hours from the trail head. We spent the next two hours enjoying ourselves in the middle of God's wondrous creation before heading back out. It was a very beautiful mile day for the hike.

Enjoying time together at the lake

Dale's new hiking stove

We finally got a chance to try out the new propane stove that Dale got for his birthday. It works really great and is super simple and handy as well as compact and light. We cooked some Bear Creak Cheddar Potato soup on it for lunch.

It was actually rather good with a dinner roll

There was a TON of snow up there!!!

We left the lake about 2:15 and got back to the truck about an hour later. Thankfully we had no problems with ticks at all, though it was still rather cold up there. It was a really nice hike and I can't wait to get out to the next trail that awaits us! ~Kriss