13.5 miles of hiking • 3500' elevation gain •
Have Dodge Ram, will hike! Wouldn't recommend the Burnt Lake South trailhead for anything less. That thing was cratered, and flooded, and just not the kind of thing you'd ever want to try a Suburu on! Definitely called for high clearance. That said...
Wonderful day! Headed up to East Zigzag Mtn, then just rambled across from the site of that old fire lookout all the way over to the site of another old lookout on West Zigzag Mtn, taking a slight detour up and around Cast Lake along the way. There was far less (virtually none) snow than 2.5 months later last year (5/30/14). The rhodies are really starting to come into bud.
Really fun day!
Comments
Karl
March 22, 2015
Total fluke -- just stuck the camera inside the tree, and pressed the shutter! :-)
Amazingly little snow up there! Was there 5/30/14, and south side of Cast lake had 2-3 feet of snow, while the Zigzag Trail above it was under nearly 10 feet!
All of which is to say, I had no idea I was leading us into a swamp on the south side of the lake! LOL...
Jim
April 2, 2015
Geeez, I just realized I did the same loop minus Cast Lake a few days later. I even recall reading your TR (as I always do) but it didn't register mentally until now. You're not kidding about that road. That 4.6 miles takes almost as long as the previous 46 miles it took to get there.
Karl
April 6, 2015
Funny we did the same loop a day apart! We didn't see another soul all day long. Amazing how snow-free it was, too. But that road... OMG. Glad I ticked that one off the list! :-)
Woodswalker
March 22, 2015
Great hollow log shot. looks like you hit snow just near the top. No snow at Cast lake! Seriously scary.