Ashland Lakes — Thursday, Jun. 30, 2022

Just back from a 5-day BCRT working on the Ashland Lakes trail between the TH and Beaver Plant Lake.

A crew of 5 of us worked on two big projects and even got a couple supplemental projects done to complement the two main priorities.

The projects were pretty close to each other -- about a mile or so in from the trailhead. The first that hikers will encounter is a realigned boardwalk crossing a boggy section of trail, keeping hikers out of the muck and the plants under the boardwalk happy.

The second project, maybe 0.3 miles further up the trail, is a long rock wall that helps manage mud from a seeping hillside.

In addition to these two sections, we realigned a small section of boardwalk above the larger project so that no longer sliding off the hillside (eep!), brushed out the trail corridor, cleared some drainages on the last push up to Beaver Plant Lake, and built some drainages between our first project site and the lake.

This is such a nice trail. It's pretty rugged -- plenty of roots and rocks to negotiate but if you're comfortable with that, it's great for first time backpacking since most of the elevation gain is at the beginning when you're fresh. Plus, the facilities are surprisingly nice! There are port-a-potties and designated campsites with firepits at each lake. The toilet at the trailhead is locked though.

We saw a surprisingly large number of hikers for how bad the road is. Each day we saw at least two parties, and on Saturday (which was sunny) we saw probably 25 people!

It would be great to have that road fixed. It accesses not only Ashland Lakes, but also Bear/Pinnacle Lakes and Boardman Lakes, a bunch of really nice hikes on the south side of the Mountain Loop Highway that could relieve pressure off places like Lake 22 or Heather Lake. And now that we've done some work on it, it's ready to have a few more visitors!