Saturday, July 18, 2020
The first hike we did while staying at the Up Up Lookout was to Hazel and Hub Lakes. Greg had trouble getting going in the morning, and it was an hour long drive to the trailhead, so we didn’t start hiking until noon. Notice the trailhead sign here, which isn’t full of bullet holes like many Forest Service signs are in Oregon:
The trail starts out on Ward Creek Trail #262 in a nice forest of cedars, some of which were quite big:
We passed a waterfall on Ward Creek called Dipper Falls in our hiking book, but which was totally missing from the topo map:
After 2.6 miles we left the Ward Creek Trail and started up Hub-Hazel Lakes Trail #280:
We started seeing some nice wildflowers:
2.5 miles from the trailhead we reached an unmarked junction where a trail headed steeply downhill to Hazel Lake:
After a short break there we returned to the main trail and continued on:
We crossed Hub Lake’s outflow:
And about ten minutes after that we reached Hub Lake:
The trail continues beyond the lake, switchbacking steeply up the hillside in the photo below to meet up with the Up Up Ridge Trail on top. (We would hike up there from a different trailhead the following day.) From the lake we couldn’t quite see the summit of Eagle Peak above us, which is out of frame and out of sight to the right in the photo below:
There’s an old abandoned mine in that hillside pictured above, a little ways off the trail that heads up the hill. I used the zoom on my point-and-shoot to get a photo. For scale you can see a hiker filling up their water in that creek:
In addition to being home to a mind shaft, that hillside was also host to a nice spray of wildflowers, which I photographed from a distance:
My foot was hurting so Greg took a 45-minute jaunt over to the hillside to take photos:
He got this nice view of Hub Lake from up there:
We had gotten a late start and spent several hours at the lake and it was time to head back. Very nice hike!
Gaia stats: 6.8 miles, 1,800′ elevation gain
See other posts from this trip:
