Barclay Lake #35

After church the kids, dog and my friend L, and another friend and his daughter went hiking to Barclay Lake. It is off of Highway 2 and is 4.4 miles round trip with only 500 feet elevation gain. We decided on Barclay because, well honestly after doing Mount Dickerman (which left a bad taste in our mouth if you couldn't tell) my friend L and I didn't want to do anything with any major elevation gain or switchbacks.
To get to Barclay Lake head east on highway 2 to Baring. After milepost 41 the town of Baring is on the right hand side of Highway 2, turn left and go over the train tracks. The road quickly becomes a dirt road and you drive up through the power line towers. Go slow because it is a one lane road and there is no shoulder, is very dusty and some washboards. You will need a Northwest Forrest Pass which you can buy at REI or a Ranger Station.
Once you get to the top there is a parking lot (small, we had to pull over on the road into the bushes) and an outhouse (which stunk, public service announcement CLOSE THE LID on the toilet so they don't stink!!!!!) Also bring bug spray, there are some bugs and if you are like me, they love you even if you have bug spray on, it just makes it so there aren't as many bites to scratch later on.

The trail begins right next to the outhouse, with a slight down grade then you come upon the sign with updated conditions of the trail and some other information and a registration if you are going to camp. The kids were pretty excited to go and were hoping to see some animals, but my friends daughter was so excited that she was doing lots of yelling.   :)   But this was her first "big" hike and she did awesome!

The trail is pretty shaded in the beginning and there are some really huge devils club and fallen trees such as these,

and trees covered in this cool fungi

We did run into the Ranger shortly after starting and talked to her and stopped to pet lots of dogs because of the girls. I think it was a quarter of the way in we came upon this wetland. I love wetlands and am totally fascinated by them and how they function.

and then the tree growing over this rock,

 the trail then becomes this pathway of rocks in the above picture. You eventually cross a tiny creek, and as you can see in the picture tiny, tiny.

which then brings you

  upon this rock that we couldn't pass up to try and climb on.

A couple of feet away you come to this single wide wooden bridge which is just a log over the creek. We found it very interesting that the water completely dried up under a rock on the other end of the bridge and didn't show back up until it was running through the wetland.

We started to go up a slight incline and it became way warmer and gave us a sneak peak of Baring Mountain

and walked right past this giant root ball and then arrived at this rock slide, that actually had nice rock steps to walk on.

A few minutes later we arrived at the lake. The kids wanted to lead the way down to the lake but took us on a path that wasn't' really a path to it.

So we back tracked and got back on the trail and found a beach spot to sit down and play in the water with this amazing view of Baring Mountain.

There are trout in the lake if you want to bring a pole and go fishing. We stayed for a long while for the kids and dog to play in the water. I want to also make another public service announcement, DO NOT have a FIRE going when conditions are this dry... period!!!!! Someone decided to start a campfire while we were up there. (My friend called it in when we got cell service.) We were shocked that someone would have a fire going and left shortly after the smoke could be seen going across the lake. The hike back was faster than going up and not as hot since it was later and there was more shade due to the position of the sun. We had an amazing time and I am planning on going back with my kids again for their first backpacking trip and going up to the other lake. I definitely recommend putting this on your list of hikes to do!

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