Hike to Bear Lake

The weather this summer has been impressive.  However, the few hikes I've done have been in the mist and fog.  Bear Lake was no different. 

You start from pole 71.  To get to pole 71, you take Sawmill Creek Road to the very end (all 8 miles of it) and park.  Then you hike on the gated and locked Green Lake Road toward the Medivijie Salmon Hatchery.  Start looking at the electrical poles from the Green Lake Hydro plant and turn left into the woods at pole 71.  Easy, huh?  It is, however, a good 45 minutes just to get on the "trail," which is an occasional "flag" of surveyor's tape that someone (and you don't know whether that someone knew where they were going or not!) tied to a bush or tree.

Matt's favorite cedar tree - and it's a whopper.

 There's a bit of "exposure" on the way up, but it's not too bad.  "Exposure" appears to be a word that indicates how steep the hill is that a person is trying to get across.   Like most things in life, different people have different tolerances of "exposure."

We're almost to the lake.  Nice flowers.

We're at the lake!  But you can't see it.  It's just to the left of the snow.

It's July 19, and there's just a little water without ice near the outflow.  The outflow tumbles down the steep mountainside - almost a waterfall.  Bear Lake water is clear as clean window glass.

It cleared up a bit.  You can see a bit of the lake.  You can also see the "iceberg" under the water.  Pretty clear water, huh?

Duck!

Matt borrowed my camera and took this picture of a spider web in the woods.  They're just amazing - except when they're in your face.

This is a cedar tree that has bark ripped from the trunk by a bear.  The bear takes its incisor and "scores" the bark at the top to be able to tear the bark off the tree and eat it.  The score marks are visible in this photo because the bear has torn the wood just a bit and green algae has grown in the tear. 

Those bears are amazing.





If you go to Bear Lake on a decent day, you can see forever - or at least a long way.  But some days are foggy.  It was still a great hike.