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| Hiking | 4.10 Miles |
335 AEG |
| | Hiking | 4.10 Miles | 3 Hrs 40 Mns | | 1.12 mph |
| 335 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | The plan was to camp with my daughter and her family at Bear Canyon Lake over the Labor Day Weekend. I drove up the Monday before the weekend to find a suitable campsite for her family with their huge family tent. After checking a bunch of likely sites and moving camp once, I finally picked a somewhat secluded well shaded spot off of FR208 only a half mile walk from the south end of the lake. There was no one else in any of the numerous dispersed camping sites on FR208 but I had some trepidation about the prospect of the holiday weekend hordes descending on this beautiful area. Much of Tuesday was spent cleaning up all the garbage left in and around camp by previous occupants. Signs posted on the road warned that bears were active in the area. No wonder, people had been burying their garbage in plastic bags instead of packing it out. Some didn't even bother to bury it. The bears were digging it up. By the end of the week after walking through many vacant dispersed campsites and hiking the trail around the lake I came to the conclusion that the preferred beer of litter bugs is Bud Lite in blue cans.
Wednesday I took the day off from campground litter cleanup and hiked the trail that loops around the shore of the lake. The south end of the lake where I started is the most scenic with meadows down to the water's edge and Aspens lining the shore in a cove where the upper Bear Canyon drainage enters the lake. I only encountered 6 other people on the entire trail, all were fishing. Several were having success catching planted rainbows about 8 to 10 inches long. It was a pleasant hike with great views of this scenic lake and I enjoyed some conversation with the fishermen. The trail along the west side is fairly well defined and easy to follow with blue diamond shaped markers on trees showing the way. On the east side there are no blue markers and the trail at best is just a faint path hugging the shore and worn into the steep hillside by fishermen and elk. Some moderate scrambling over rock outcroppings and traversing steep slopes is required. Approaching the south end of the lake the trail becomes more well defined as it passes around a drainage entering the lake from the east. A dead elk was bloated and floating in the drainage and as I feared, when passing down wind the stench was horrific. Despite the stinky ending the hike was a pleasant scenic respite from the overheated valley desert but best done during the week to avoid the weekend hordes. |
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