July 19
Today is another BAS meet up hike from Aloha Lake to Lake of the Woods. We have 12 people in our group. Parking today is the worst we have ever seen it! Cars are lined All up and down the road many parked like knuckleheads. Hopefully this is not An indication of what the trail will be like. We ended up parking at the end of the road. 9 miles away from the trailhead and walked up the road to the Aloha Lake Chalet where the trail starts.
The trail takes us along a granite surfaces above the lake. Our temperatures are in the mid 70s much better than the forecasted at 94 back home.
After walking along the exposed granite for a bit We enter a more shaded and green portion of Trail
Soon we can look back at both upper and lower Echolake, which we are now above. There is a well placed rock outcropping that is perfect for photos
3 miles from the chalet we enter the desolation wilderness
After a couple switchbacks along a very rocky trail, we once again enter the nice green Meadow with beautiful wide open views
Turn left at the trail Junction to a lake of the woods and begin heading back downhill passing bunch of Sierra Tiger lilies. They are a beautiful orange flower
Once we reached the lake N A granite outcropping and took a swim in the lake. The water temperature was perfect and very refreshing.
After lunch, we climbed up from the lake location back to the main trail Once again, passing a beautiful wildflowers and incredible views of the lake
The section of trail between the chalet and Lake of the woods cut off is the PCT. Anytime I hike on a portion of the PCT now I load up my backpack with Trail magic today. I have orange crush soda, some Maui brewing, logger, and cutie oranges. Through hikers are recognizable when you know what to look for as I would come across one I would ask where they were heading, and when they smiled and told me Canada, I would ask them if I could interest them in Trail Magic. The look of surprise and joy on their face When I reach in and pull out a cold drink, bring us smiles to my face as well. Some of the Trail names below are cuddles, which is short for snake cuddles, Scrub daddy, A hiker who has not yet been given a Trail name so I just simply called him no name, And a couple that I did not get a picture of named Witch MD And Rock flipper.
On our return to the chalet, we have more amazing views of the lake below. Today was a long day not only did we have a delay in finding parking and the road walk up to the trail, But one of our hikers rolled in ankle on a rock In the first 2 miles. Lake Aloha has a water taxi. We were able to call the chalet and arrange pick up along the shore, this added another 45 minutes to our trip.
With the delays, some of our team decided to take the water taxi back to the chalet at the end of the hike, Off 2 1/2 miles as we walked along the trail, we could see the boat speeding past us in the middle of the lake
We reached the chalet, those who had taken the water taxi retrieve the cars while we were still on trail saving us the last .9 mile walk down the road. It was an another amazing day with great people and beautiful weather and scenery.
