Saturday, June 18, 2022
Seeking sunshine, Deb and I drove east from our campsite today and hiked to Ancient Lake.
There were 20 cars at the trailhead when we arrived at 10:15. We hiked past the gate and set off:
We were a little late for most of the wildflowers, but still saw some:
The cliffs towered above us:
We passed a waterfall tumbling from the bluff above. I imagine it will dry up in a few weeks:
We saw what looked like vintage airplanes flying overhead, which was pretty cool:
Then we got our first sight of Ancient Lake:
We took the trail along the north side of the lake:
It stopped being a trail and became more of a rock scramble:
Then we reached Ancient Lake Falls:
We scrambled up a “trail” to get to the top of the falls:
Along the way we passed a nice rock viewpoint where hikers could sit and enjoy the view, except this guy thought he would set up his tent there:
Looking back at the lake below:
This is the top tier of the waterfall:
We reached the top of the falls and could see upstream towards Judith Pool and H Lake (out of sight) where the water comes from:
We sat up there for awhile enjoying the view.
The guy with the tent continued setting up his camp on the ledge:
We descended back down to the lake, made our way back through the boulder field, and hiked along the shoreline:
Looking back at the falls:
We reached a narrow shallow spot in the lake that was more like a wetland and watched the birds here:
Then we continued on:
I believe this is poison ivy:
We left Ancient Lake behind and set off on one of the user trails heading west:
We soon passed one of the other unnamed lakes, the westernmost one of the grou:
We continued west:
We met back up with the Dusty Lake Trail and headed back to the car. We had originally planned to add on the hike to Dusty Lake today, but neither of us are acclimated to warm weather yet after the cold wet spring we’ve had and we were hot and tired.
Gaia stats: 5.4 miles, 280′ elevation gain
Video:
