We arrived at the trailhead around nine am this morning. The road up was in great shape with only a few potholes along the way. There were about fifteen other cars already at the trailhead, many as we were to discover from overnight backpackers already up at the lake.
The initial assent up to Lake Dorothy is relatively straightforward. The sounds of the rushing river punctuated a beautiful morning. There was a light drizzle throughout the climb keeping us cool without soaking us. The bugs were light for much of our trip as well.
Cresting the first ridge into the lake basin we saw the trail down to the lake and explored there first. The blueberries and huckleberries are plentiful throughout the basin right now so we picked a few as we walked down to the water. There were a few floaters already out on the water casting their lines out looking for a fishy breakfast no doubt.
We continued around the lake, taking in the views and appreciating the cool breeze that came through the valley. Sun breaks popped up occasionally but it never really got hot at all on this hike.
Many of the campgrounds were occupied by overnight backpackers, a few cleared out and passed us on the trail heading down to their cars leaving most of the campgrounds available as we passed by before noon.
All the ranger toilets seemed to be in good shape, we even popped over to the one that has an awesome view and grabbed a shot. :-)
Taking a break on the far side of the lake my son and I decided we'd head on up to Bear Lake. Starting at the far side of the lake and throughout the climb out of the lake basin we started encountering a modest amount of biting flies and mosquitoes. Nothing we couldn't deal with and we never had to take out the DEET. The river crossing here was very easy for us. We didn't need poles and were able to hop from rock to rock until we made it to the far side.
We reached the saddle in the middle of the afternoon and realized we'd need to turn for home without continuing. We were both pretty tired by the five plus miles of our hike in and over seventeen hundred feet of elevation gain. We logged about twenty-one hundred feet for the entire hike. So we turned back and headed back down to the lake.
By now we had a few backpackers passing us heading up to Bear and other lakes further in and we continued to see them all the way back down and to the trail head. As we had gone past Lake Dorothy many of the camp sites had already filled up. I counted a total of twenty-four backpacks even a few heading out from the car lot as we got back. I haven't a clue where all of them would camp, but wished them luck as I updated them on the numbers we'd already seen ahead of them.
Overall it was a very good day to be out on the trail. My son and I had a good time. His pause in the middle of the hike to say to me, "Listen, can you hear that? It's super quiet!!" was priceless and made the entire climb worth the efforts.
We returned to our car with almost eleven miles on our sore feet but priceless memories to carry forward.
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