Ira Spring Trail - Mason Lake, Island Lake - Rainbow Lake, Blazer Lake & Lake Kulla Kulla — Sunday, Jul. 18, 2021

A friend and I did a fun hike near Mason Lake yesterday to pick up a few off-trail lakes.

Firstly, we decided we did not want to drive the Mason Lake Road, instead choosing to park right off the freeway at exit 42. The trail that leads up to the Mason Lake road from here is very easy to find, and it's a great little trail. Nice soft forest tread, and it follows Mason Creek most of the way, including a couple of rustic log bridges at the bottom. It's nice open forest with lots of moss and small trees, and few roots or rocks to speak of. This trail dumps you out on the road just a few hundred feet down from the trailhead parking lot, near a big pile of boulders. It only took us about 20 minutes to hike from the car to the trailhead, with about 550' of elevation gain. It would most likely take us about the same time to drive up the freeway another three miles, then back on the horrible road for 3-4 more, so if you can manage a bit of extra climbing, this route is highly recommended.

The parking lot was just full and starting to overflow onto the road when we arrived at around 8:30 AM on a Sunday. Seems like many people start this hike pretty early to beat the crowds and the heat. We passed a couple folks on the trail, and then headed up the old Mason Creek trail to get to the lake. Nothing to report here - the trail is snow-free and in great shape. There are very steep parts near the waterfalls and just below the lake, but it's a faster way to get to the lake with a lot of solitude, as we only saw one other person on this trail going up and down.

After Mason Lake, we had an off-trail adventure planned. We first hiked up to Sir Richard Pond (bugs horrible here but the pond is scenic), and then dove into the bush headed for Lake Kulla Kulla. We reached Little Kulla Lake first, followed by Kulla Kulla, and it took roughly 45 minutes from Sir Richard Pond to get down to Kulla Kulla. Both lakes have pretty inaccessible shorelines - Little Kulla due to brush, and Kulla Kulla due to steep slopes near the shore, and brush in places. Kulla Kulla is huge and swimmable, but Little Kulla is more of a glorified pond. The mosquitoes were pretty annoying at both lakes if you stopped. We climbed back away from the lake a bit to have lunch and get away from them. In terms of our route, we were following some pink flags for a while, but these seemed to be heading for the wrong end of the lake (the outlet end), and wouldn't have taken us to Little Kulla Lake. We more or less followed the route indicated in the Gaia map, using a compass, but be aware it's not any kind of a trail at all, not even game trails - just 100% bushwhacking.

Our next stop was Blazer Lake, which we reached by traversing east before we got back up to Sir Richard Pond. This traverse was extremely brushy, the kind where you can't see the ground at your feet. This took around 30 minutes. Blazer is a really cool lake with a nice sandy shoreline with some rocks, and a lovely view of Pratt Mountain and some cliffs to the south, where the Rainbow Lake outlet empties over a small waterfall. The water was nice and warm with a sandy/silty bottom and this lake is perfect for swimming. Bugs were a bit annoying here, but not awful - mostly flies. We climbed out of here up a ridge to the west, reaching a way trail next to Sir Richard Pond in about 20 minutes.

Finally, we stopped by Rainbow Lake which is just up the trail from Sir Richard Pond. We found a side trail next to the lake outlet that goes to a really cool overlook of Blazer Lake (see photo). It appears this side trail actually descends all the way to Blazer Lake, but we didn't go too far down it past the overlook to verify that - if it does go it would be quite steep. Even if you don't go down, it's definitely worth checking out the overlook since Blazer Lake is very scenic and you get a good view of Kaleetan and Caroline Peak in the distance.

In summary - I don't recommend going to Kulla Kulla or Little Kulla unless you really like bushwhacking - the lakes themselves are hard to enjoy, unless maybe with a raft at Kulla Kulla. It's possible the shore conditions are better near the outlet of Kulla Kulla, but it would have been another long bushwhack to get to that side of the lake so we didn't go there. Blazer Lake is really cool and worth a visit.

There's a cool pile of massive rocks next to the trail just west of Sir Richard Pond - see photo below.