Lake Dorothy - Lake Bear - Lake Deer — Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009

Central Cascades > Stevens Pass - West

My friend and I decided to make this our first backpacking trip to test ourselves and our gear due to the many options (continuing on to other lakes and plenty of camping) it presented. Like the previous poster, I had no issues with the road getting to the trailhead in a passenger car, only thing that slowed me down were the blind corners. We got there late (11:30) on a Saturday, but there were still some open spots in the parking lot even though there were cars parked on the side of the road before the lot. To my novice eyes, the trail to the day use area is very well maintained and much of it is either man made steps or boardwalk. Since neither of us were used to carrying 35lbs on our backs, we did take a lot of breaks playing leap frog with some other groups, but there weren’t too many people on the trail. When we arrived at the day use junction, we took a look at the map to see where the campsites are. If you are planning on camping, I would take a close look and possibly take a picture of the campsite map since we were only able to find maybe a 1/3 of the campsites listed (I have posted a picture of the map that I took on the way out if it helps). There were no signs to many of the campsites and others, we just didn’t even know where to look. When we followed the trail away from the day use area, traffic noticeably thinned out and the trail was a little less maintained, but nothing impossible. After a little bit of elevation gain, we saw a sign for the first campsites, but since we were so high up and we hadn’t actually seen the lake yet, we didn’t bother to look since we wanted to do some fishing. We kept going until we saw some other campsites right by the lake, but they were all taken. Towards the end of the lake, we were starting to worry that we wouldn’t find any campsites, but a couple eating lunch told us there were some at the end of the lake after going over the river so we pressed on. When we got to the river (as per previous posts, the bridge is gone) we were able to walk across it on top of rocks without getting wet as the water wasn’t very high. We found the best path to be 15 feet back down the trail from where the bridge used to be, an easy place to get to the river and a good path of rocks to cross over. After crossing the river, we were greeted with a campsite just on the other side so we decided to take it. There wasn’t a fishing opportunity, but it was a nice site with the sound of the river in the background. The rest of the day, we hiked around the river and lounged on the rocks making up many small pools and waterfalls. The only negatives about the site were that the bugs got pretty thick in the evening and the fact that a huge tree had fallen over the trail to the toilet. Note for anyone continuing past this point, the same tree fell directly on the trail so you need to follow/bushwhack through a trail marked by plastic ribbon to get around the downed tree and back to the trail. The next day was calmer and clearer and provided much better views (see picture of mountain reflected in the lake) and the hike out wasn’t nearly as demanding. The way in, we probably took over 10 breaks and on the way out, we took about 3 and 2 of them were to look at the view. All in all, a great hike for a beginning backpacker filled with lots of beautiful scenery. You can see the rest of my pictures here: http://cid-d56289beba63fd67.skydrive.live.com/play.aspx/Dorothy%20Lake%20Hike?ref=1