Baker Lake - Maple Grove
This trip was planned to depart from the northern shore, on the Baker River Trailhead and hike up to Silver Creek. The trail was devastated and some people hardly made it to Noisy Creek. We changed plans at the last moment to hike from the south trailhead and stay at Maple Grove.
We met at the Birdsview Brewery parking lot in the morning and did caravan to the Baker Lake Trailhead. We arrived at 8:30 to the trailhead. There was only one car there at the time. Shortly after a folk from WTA arrived and was wondering if we were from their work party. I'll say that they made a great job! Thanks a lot!
The first obstacle was well documented in prior trail reports. A set of two big timbers blocking the trail. They both had cut handholds and footholds.
Right before Anderson Point you make it to a river with a log bridge. We saw a dog that was scared to cross the bridge and they had to carry him. When it was my turn to cross and I heard the raging river roar intensely below my feet I understood perfectly
We walked about the same distance again and made it to Maple Grove; where we saw WTA had some power tools
Maple Grove, as the name suggests is full of maple trees. We setup camp, had lunch and did take a break before hitting the trail with lighter packs. Those Trade Joe's hummus wraps did make a very solid hike lunch!
We decided to continue hiking northbound and see were we'd make it. At mile 1.5 we encountered a huge root that was blocking the whole trail, but was easy to navigate.
We saw many more uprooted trees and washed out pieces of trail, but they were very minor and anybody who can walk there should be able to navigate them.
Right by the time the lake bends to the east, we saw what seemed like a destruction zone. You could tell WTA had been there recently and had cleared the path, but it was quite impressive still. Karla had run out of water, so we decided to turn back right there. We were around 2.5 miles away from camp.
We went back to Maple Grove and 5 minutes or so before we stopped at the creek to gather water.
The sun came out and it gave us beautiful views of the mountains EXCEPT Baker. There were these clouds just stuck around Baker blocking it. Fortunately in the morning we were able to peek at it.
I decided to take the air-hammock for a float at the Lake! It worked great, but I feel on my butt on the water while trying to get off after the "paddling" Luckily we built a very bad ass fire that warmed me up. I tried to use it to dry my lower base layer, but it got burned :(
Kate brought a game which kept us entertained before dinner. Qwixx
After dinner we told random stories and Scott made me cry out of laughter with a story on his visit to Mexico when he was in school. I won't pretend to tell the story, so I'll just put a few keywords so that I can remember. Combi, ant mounts and monkeys. It sounds pretty cool, right?
Morning pictures:
On the way out we noticed WTA had cleared the hard obstacle in the way in! They also cut some anti-slip lines on the foothold in the remaining tree.
We hiked out somewhat fast, took some pictures along the way and then Karla and I stopped for a well earned beer and burger! I enjoyed this trip a lot. I'm looking forward to going out with them again.
