Lake Dorothy - Lake Bear - Lake Deer — Friday, May. 9, 2025

I had been watching the weather and waiting for a rain-free weekend that wouldn’t go down below 38-40 f overnight, so I could do an early season overnight at Lake Dorothy. I also figured by now there'd be no snow left at 3200 feet.

The last 2 miles of road to the washout at a bridge has a lot of potholes, as typical. I wouldn’t do it in a low clearance vehicle but YMMV. Potholes and rocks stress me out enough in a high clearance vehicle. There were no cars at the ‘new’ trailhead at 9 am on a Friday morning. There is a sign with Alpine Lakes Wilderness passes to fill out for overnights and some helpful person(s) left 3 varnished wooden hiking poles. Here begins the 3.85 mile gravel road walk, which is a pleasant, shady, warm-up. At 1.7 miles in, you hit the “water across the road” section. I was surprised this was an intentional engineering design, like a 'wash'. I got my feet a bit wet, but not too bad. It’s maybe 4 inches deep, and I avoided the slimy algae area (which might have been shallower?) as I didn’t want to slip. You can totally ride a bike up this road section. Maybe 1 or 2 smallish logs to lift your bike over, the rest have gaps or go arounds.

At the original trailhead, the bathroom was unlocked, but I didn’t like the inside much – the pit toilet seemed to have water up to the concrete level.

On the trail proper, it is about 1.6 miles to the lake. The trail conditions seemed to be the same as described previously. Maybe 4 or 5 logs down before the bridge crossing, and the smashed crib stairs and cut out log after the bridge. Yeah, a lot of crib stairs. Nice on the way up, tedious on the way down.

The highlight of this section is the bridge over Camp Robber Creek and the confluence with a part of the East Fork Miller Creek. The water was gushing and gorgeous!

Keep in mind that once you get to the lake, it will be a while before you reach the campsites (assuming that is your goal, or a longer day hike) which are towards the flatter inlet area. It seemed like a very long 1.5 miles to the first campsite, with a bit of up and down and some bouldery stuff to get there. The lake itself is 2 miles long!

After I set up camp, I headed further up the lake and saw better campsites. I wanted to reach the inlet water crossing to see how deep it was. I only went as far as the point where the snow got deeper and I was postholing. There wasn’t any other noteworthy snow until that point. I caught a glimpse of the inlet from a distance and the water crossing looked wider than I had imagined, and I have no idea how deep as I didn’t get right up to it. But it was flowing heavy, for sure.

I hiked up on a Friday and saw no one. I was the only one there overnight. If there had been any day hikers (dubious), I didn’t hear them and they definitely didn’t venture down the lake. I had the entire 2-mile long lake to myself! Immense solitude, and the lake was extremely beautiful and peaceful! I shared that evening and the next morning with an osprey, a couple ducks, and the soothing sound of the falls across the lake.

On my way out Saturday I passed 4 day hikers and 1 backpacker hiking in. This is the perfect time to year to camp overnight…no bugs!