Mirror Lake

[tiggymalvern]

I went hiking yesterday! Something I've done almost none of this year, with all the stuff going on taking up my time, with planning permission and Kuro being chronically ill and just ugh. When I got back from the birdwatching weekend in Yakima, I said, 'And now I'll start going hiking!' and then promptly twisted my knee weeding the garden, so didn't hike for three weeks while it stopped aching.

Anyway, hiking happened!

I've done Mirror Lake before, but last time I did the longer route via the Pacific Crest Trail. You need a high clearance vehicle to get there unfortunately (I went with a friend that time). So with my very much not-high-clearance car, I took the shorter route, and figured that would be better for testing out my knee anyway.



My hiking guide said the actual trail was easy to miss where it departs from the forest road, marked by a small cairn. Fortunately, some kind person had allowed for this and left a more obvious marker :-)



Plants along the shady, forested part of the trail.




Approaching Mirror Lake via the short route, you first find Cottonwood Lake. Pretty enough, but with little accessible shoreline.


And then you climb uphill another half a mile to reach Mirror Lake.








I was pleasantly surprised by how few people I saw, going to a lake that's only a short hike on a hot summer day. I didn't meet anyone on the trail up to Mirror Lake, and only three groups once I got there. There are reasons I hike on weekdays instead of weekends, but even so there can still be significant numbers of people sometimes when the kids are off school. Not this week.

Since it was only a short hike, I decided to take a look at Lost Lake on the way back, which you pass on the road. It looked pretty enough through the trees on the way there. It looked pretty enough from the shoreline too.


As long as you didn't look at anything too closely, because people had obviously been partying at the campsites and they'd left giant overflowing bags of rubbish just dumped in the bushes. There's no worse trash than arsehole people...

Anyway, my knee was absolutely fine, except for one quick twinge when I climbed over a fallen log - keep the knee straight, don't twist it an angle with all my weight on it, duly noted! So I will sign myself up for more next time.

Comments

[bymyverytoes]

That's a beautiful lake. Glad your knee was up to it.

but such sodding arseholes leaving their crap everywhere :(

Thanks for sharing your lovely photos again ❤️

[kronette]

You have pretty water. We have the muddy Mississippi and Meramec.

[tiggymalvern]

It pisses me off so much. You took all those bottles out there! They fitted in your car just fine! Why can't you fit them in your car to take them away again!

Nah, we'll just dump them in the bushes, nobody else will care any more than we do, right?

[tiggymalvern]

Part of the reason they're pretty is that they're frozen for five months of the year, so not as much lives in them, which makes the water very clear LOL. But yeah, they're delightful in summer :-)