Fish Lake Trail #1013

Saturday, May 8, 2020

We took Katie and drove to the Fish Lake boat ramp area and hiked the Fish Lake trail #1013 from Fish Lake to the North Fork Campground for a nice 6.9 mile trek through the forest. This hike also put us over the 200 mile mark for the year.

The trails starts by following the outline of the lake affording us some great views of a still full Fish Lake as well as a snow covered Brown Mt in the background.  Eventually the trail heads away from the lake as it skirts around some private cabin properties and then comes back toward the lake near the dam.  From here the trail follows the North Fork of the Little Butte river.  It has been a while since we last hiked here and since then they have put in logs across portions of the stream to create better wildlife habitat.  We only disturbed a couple of Canada Geese along the slow section of river, but the area looks like an ideal place for deer, elk and even beaver.  We took a break at a campsite in the closed North Fork campground befroe retracing our steps back to Fish Lake,   Lots of wildflowers, a few patches of snow, and the wonderful smell of the woods.  All in all a great hike on a very hot spring day.  Katie also enjoyed the "leash free" hike, eating and rolling in the snow, and of course, taking a few dips in the water.

Trekking Together
Glenn and Carol

View of Fish Lake with Brown Mt in background

Calypso Orchid

Yellow Violet

Oregon Anemone

North Fork of Little Butte along the trail.  Notice the "log jam" to far left of water

Some areas of water had lots of green algea

Still a few snow patches on the trail, much to Katie's delight

New boardwalk area over snow runoff water

One last look at Fish Lake and Brown Mt