North Lake 09-15-2019

Another new hike for me!  This hike is all about water anyway with two lakes, a nice sized tarn and many smaller pools along the way - but today was POURING down rain.  It still only comes in 2nd place on my wettest hikes ever though.  Tubal Cain Mine is still in the lead for that dubious award.

Apple Watch stats:  7.39 miles RT, 2903 ft of elevation gain.  The actual trail is likely just a touch over 7, but I did a tiny bit of backtracking when I hiked past a turn. 

This trail starts out meandering through some lovely woods to Independence Lake at about 3/4 mile in.  This is by far the most popular destination on this trail, and I had hiked this a couple weeks previously with Dave and the adventure dogs.  Today though, with the rain, there was only one car at the trailhead and I met a man and his two small children hiking out from where they had camped overnight at Independence - and no one else.  The rest of my hike I had the wilderness in all its gloriousness all to myself!  Muahahahaha!!!  ALL MINE!

Water streamed off of every surface - every fir needle, every leaf, every stone dripped and rushed and flowed with it.  The trail was mostly a stream itself and I often found myself hiking up and down small temporary waterfalls. 

The actual waterfalls along the trail were amazing.  They roared and frothed and really celebrated the start of a wet northwest fall.

Around 2 - 2 1/2 miles in there is a left you need to take.  It goes up a rocky slope that doesn't look anything like a trail.  If you go straight though, the trail is super clear.  This leads to what I'm guessing is the 2nd most popular destination along this trail - a lovely deep tarn.  The trail comes out on the rocky banks of it and it looks like a great place to picnic or swim on a warmer day.  I had recently taken a map reading class, so I not only brought my map - I actually looked at it for a change!  I could see that I should not be right at the edge of this tarn, but up the slope a ways cutting upward.  I remembered seeing a cairn back by the non-traily looking rocky slope, so I backtracked to there and from that direction the trail was a bit clearer.  It's rarely easy to find a trail on rock though, and the rain covering everything made it harder to discern.

On the rocky shore of a pretty lake I wasn't supposed to end up on the edge of

Up the slope above North Lake, it again got pretty rocky and the trail was difficult to follow.  In addition, I don't think this section of the trail gets used as much so it was really overgrown.

Overgrown trail

The lake was a long ways down!  I thought about staying up above and enjoying the view, rather than risking a slip/fall getting down to it in the wet, but I was SO CLOSE.  So I got there and was glad I did.

North Lake itself was beautiful.  The far side was a slope with trees, but the trail meets up with the lake in a jumble of huge gorgeous boulders and to my left there were sheer granite slabs, shining in the rain.  I ate a quick lunch using a boulder as a wind block and then headed back up that hill. 

There were mushrooms everywhere from a wet summer and the fresh rain. 

One big bolete was bigger than my head, so I scuttled under the brush to get a picture next to it for size (since I didn't want to pick it for no reason). 

Another mushroom had been apparently growing next to a small stream, and the rainwater had flooded it. 

There were quite a few bears head fungi which is a choice edible.  I took a larger but less pretty one home and added it to a nice seafood chowder later.  Yum!

Don't wait for good weather - get out there and adventure!