Ashland Lakes — Sunday, Jun. 9, 2019

Sooooo... I saw low clearance cars (a Jetta and a Corolla) at the trailhead - I salute your driving skills. This road is a mine field of crater sized potholes, rock fields and washouts... There's one part that should be on the map as a lake... (yes... it really does pretty much go all of the way across the road - on the left there, that's about a foot or two wide at most) It's definitely one of the worst I've driven on - that said our Crosstrek didn't scrape bottom at all, though there were a few times I expected it. If you take a low clearance car, you better be very confident... 

The parking area only has about 6 spots - we took the last spot when we got there and it appeared that everyone else had camped and was heading out as we went in. It was very, very quiet. We didn't have to share the lakes with anyone else - just us and the dragonflies for lunch. 

The trail is rocky and rooty, but it's in very good shape all the way to Upper Ashland. Going down to Lower Ashland it gets a little rougher - there's a few fairly easily navigated blowdowns. Watch your step on the boardwalks..there's some slippery spots. We also climbed a little bit of the Bald Mt. trail - it is far less maintained, but clearly delineated and easily followed as far as we went - there were some blowdowns on it though and some sketchy sections of partially destroyed/rotted boardwalk. 

The kalmia is finished blooming, but check out the buckbean in Upper Ashland. Crazy fringed white flowers, growing in the water.