Church Lake

This was an incredibly nice hike but the getting there was terrible. The road to Damfino Lakes off of Hwy 542 was OK but the spur road off of that road was gnarly. If your vehicle does not have high clearance, good tires, and good brakes, then don't even think about this trip. There were at least 60 water bar dips in the road that low clearance vehicles will not tolerate. That said, there is an unofficial and fairly popular trail to Church Lake. The trail starts at the very end of the road and heads south up into a nice basin area. It was only 1 mile and 500' of gain to the lake but there were paths leading everywhere for further exploration. We continued south to the shoulder of Bear Paw Peak. Much of the travel was on snow but the trail poked through often enough that we could navigate easily.