We stopped at Sylvan Lake. It is considered the "crown jewel" of the three man-made lakes inside the park. It offers boating, fishing, swimming and hiking.
We decided to hike around Sylvan Lake. The guidebooks and the park's visitor's guide rated the trail as an "easy one mile loop". That's usually our first mistake: listening to the guidebooks.
We decided to hike around Sylvan Lake. The guidebooks and the park's visitor's guide rated the trail as an "easy one mile loop". That's usually our first mistake: listening to the guidebooks.
About a third of the way around the lake, we came to an impasse. The trail curled to the right, in front of the giant rock feature (see above). But then it just sort of ended. It looked as though the trail led right into the lake itself. What the heck? We backtracked a little and found an offshoot trail through a narrow canyon. It appeared to continue behind the rock. Little did we know that this trail would lead us up on top of it.
Poor Ma.
We weren't expecting to do any rock climbing on this hike. It was a far cry from "easy", but Ma was such a trooper.
Yay!! We made it to the other side!!
I suspect that there had once been a trail around the shoreline, but the water level was too high and covered it. At least I keep telling myself that. The guidebook couldn't seriously classify what we hiked as "easy".
