This last weekend our good friends Matt and Shannon took us on a hike with them in Bells Canyon. The week before they did this same hike with a goal to find the 2ND lake at the top of the canyon, but couldn't find it. For this attempt they did some online research and also found someone that has been there to try and see if they could describe the way. Why is it so difficult? The trail only goes so far and then you are pretty much bush-whacking it hoping you can make your way to the end. Our hike began fairly moderate through to the first lake and on past the waterfall. We followed the trail as far as it led us and then we had to rely on the cairns to lead us in the right direction.
Here if you look right in the middle you can see the first lake towards the beginning of the hike. From this ridge is probably close to the half way mark to our destination, the 2ND lake.
It isn't much farther past this point that the trail ends and the cairns eventually disappear. The last marker we saw was at the first boulder field and from that point is where it started to get messy. From what we were told by those that had supposedly made it to the lake, we were just supposed to stay to the right of the river and gain elevation.... whatever that's supposed to mean. A couple more hours past midway we found ourselves engulfed in waist high brush and often weaving our way over and under trees. We held a vote on whether or not to continue and after a tie, the girls just couldn't seem to convince the men to keep going. After 5 1/2 hours, scraped up arms and legs and signs of thunderstorms we began our trek back down. We decided we will try again and we WILL find this lake, but next time we will come more prepared. Next time we will need to have a machete to clear a path when the brush gets thick and maybe we will have found someone that has been there before to guide the way. It took us a good 8 hours to get as far as we did and back, but I think if we had a better navigation plan we probably could have made it the whole way in the same amount of time. Have you or anyone you know made it to that 2ND lake?
We only had one casualty from the wind!!! A pop up shade canopy for eating under... we were able to lash it together to make it work for the rest of the trip!!!
