Merritt Lake and Lost Lake — Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025

We hiked to Merritt Lake only. The road is rough but passible for the first mile, then the last half mile is very rocky and steep, drive your Prius at your own risk and leave the low rider in the garage. Fall is the perfect time to hike this trail, lots of fall color and no bugs at the lake. The trail is in good condition but steep for the 2 miles to the intersection with the Nason Ridge trail to Crescent Lake, then it mellows out a bit.  You will hit some slushy snow here, just enough to give the hike some atmosphere of fall, no spikes needed. The day use area at the lake is snow covered but the camping spots in the woods are snow free. There is a backcountry loo here and in pretty good shape. If you have some left in the tank, hike up to the ridge just before the Lost Lake trail takes off downhill, nice views out to the surrounding hills and down on Merritt Lake, I didn't but I did last time did this hike. The only people we saw were 2 happy hunters on their way out, looking forward to a freezer full of venison.  I'm a 74 yr old chunky grandma in reasonably good shape but I will freely admit that this hike was hard for me, much harder than it was when I did it 6 yrs ago. I had to stop a lot and rest my legs even tho my aerobics were good.  Father Time was hiking with us today and he invited Uncle Arthur along. My bad knee was really painful and I had to resort to 2 Aleve.  It seems like every source I read had a bit different mileage and elevation for this one, including the smartwatch, so I used the GT paper and got 6 miles and 2100 gain.