6 miles of hiking • 1250' elevation gain •
We decided to hit this hike up on the way home from a weekend near Bend.The plan was to do Potato Butte, but the conditions had other ideas. The snow starts on this hike around Red Lake. It's hard packed and melting, so you only punch through once in a while. The trail is a mess though, more of a creek or a bog than a trail in some places. Red Lake and Averill Lake are snow-free and beautiful. Wall Lake is 50% snowed over, 35% slush and a little water. This is the point that we turned around at. It was getting a little darker than we were comfortable with, given the distance from the car and we still had to drive home to Portland. I hope to return to this area soon, before the clouds of vampires come out of the water. No bites today, but it was getting a little buggy on the way back.
