BFTA Trinity Alps: Fish Lake Creek Trail

Klamath National Forest

(orange line, map link)

DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3  |  DAY 4  |  DAY 5  |  DAY 6-7

From our camp at Long Gulch Lake, we had access to four different trails to work and would spend a little time on all of them. Our first target was the trail between there and Fish Lake. We headed back to the junction and found a few trees to log out on the way up the last little piece of Long Gulch Trail to the saddle. A couple were small enough for a Katanaboy, but another couple needed the real saw.

Meadow and trees in Long Gulch.

The ridge gets very steep where the trail to Fish Lake goes.

We gathered at the saddle and sorted out the various trails that are up there. Most are signed, even if not all that clearly. They aren't all that clear on the ground either. From here, we would be on the Bigfoot Trail, the specific trail that the Bigfoot Trail Alliance has been formed to maintain. We headed up along the ridge, cutting out one more log, and the trail solidified into a tread as it went off the edge to continue north. It gets rocky on the way to another saddle.

High rocky bits in Long Gulch.

It was like the seasons changed as we went over that second saddle. Great numbers of penstemon and paintbrush were blooming. As we got lower, more things with greater water needs started to pop up.

Meadow on the way to Fish Lake somewhere below.

Something I'm sure is a quill-leaf Lewisia even though the flowers are half the size I've seen before.

We almost missed the trail where a large tree lay across a switchback. Some of the trail was looking rough after the recent fire and then rains. This might have just been more of that, but after four (four!) cuts through the thick trunk, we uncovered some very nicely rocked tread.

Clearing around the big tree to find the trail again.

A well deserved rest after getting the important bits of this log removed.

Some very late shooting stars almost finished hanging on.

Rocky section of the canyon.

As we wandered downward, the rocky trail turned to meadow and got harder to follow. Through the forest, it got easy again. We didn't get to see the lake until we got there.

A bit of dusky onion right on the trail.

That meadow again, now up close and personal.

Toothed owl's clover was everywhere in the meadows.

The junction to continue on to the road was faint and I missed it on the way to the lake. On the way back, I did find it. It was a faint trail marked by a cairn.

Fish Lake and the marshy meadow around it.

We were getting pretty late in the day by the time we got to Fish Lake, but took a little time to enjoy the meadows before making sure one last log was sorted and cleared.

Pollinators on white rush lilies.

Of course there are white bog orchids.

The we got going up the hill with dreams of better defining the trail through the meadow areas. Did it work? Meadows do have this dreadful tendency to be full of annuals, or things that die back even though they are perennial.

Small flower beardtongue (penstemon) by a cairn.

Tiny and very furry Marrium's alumroot.

Cardwell's beardtongue surrounded by russethair saxifrage.

Knowing there were people behind me, so I wouldn't be the last back, I kept trimming back encroaching pines along the way as I climbed upward to get over the ridge. Perhaps I shouldn't have. Some of us, including me, got back quite late. We just really wanted to get all the way to the lake once we were so close.

Back to the ridge above Long Gulch, now with better light to look out over the valley.

On the way back, I discovered Long Gulch Lake has an island. It fades into the rocks behind it very well when seen from the side of the lake. If you look very closely, you can see it, but you really have to know what you are looking for.

Long Gulch Lake from up on the ridge.

same trip, next day ⇒

*even more photos in the album*




©2023 Valerie Norton
Written 23 Aug 2023