Hiking around Clear Lake

After a couple of weekend trips up Castle Rock via the King Castle Trail, I decided to mix it up a bit on this last weekend in February. The King Castle Trail was just too perfect. It was steep enough that the trail was a real workout. The forest was awesome and not much different than all the other forest hikes around. It was long and the trailhead was really easy to access. All of those things added up to a great experience and it was now my go to hike nearly every weekend. This one, though, I switched it up and drove a bit further up the road to Sahalie Falls. I would start my hike here because I wanted to get a good view of the waterfalls.

Hiking on the other side of the falls along the McKenzie River Trail, this was quite a better view. I was surprised just how close I could get to the falls themselves. I was basically standing right on the edge of the falls and there were no railings or paved walks on this side. The falls was cranking as the early season melt was beginning. I enjoyed that beginning to the hike but the ultimate goal was to hike around Clear Lake. Jacqueline and the kids had spent a day with me up at Clear Lake a few weeks prior. We just hung out and spent some time by the lake. This day though I hiked up the McKenzie River Trail until I showed up at the outlet which is the beginning of the McKenzie River coming directly out of Clear Lake.
Clear Lake is this phenomenal lake that has insanely clear water because it is mostly all spring fed. The rocks around it are so porous that the water just flows right out of the mountains and into Clear Lake from a huge underground aquifer. The hike around the lake is pretty, but it is fairly flat. It is a few miles so it takes quite a bit of time and the view does not change much. There is a campground on one side of the lake and by far the most interesting part of the entire hike is coming upon the springs where the water comes in. You can tell why it is called Clear Lake at this point as seeing down to the bottom is easy to do.

The lake was amazingly blue and with the perfect sunny day once I got to the other side of the lake I got a great view of Mt. Washington still covered in snow. Well, not much to do except pass through the resort area and complete the loop to head back to the falls. These weekend hikes had become so valuable to me as a way to clear my head to come up with new ideas. Teaching was turning out to be a difficult job but I was hanging with it. McKenzie was a place where they were letting me try new things and so far I was feeling pretty good about the students that I was lucky enough to teach. These hikes kept my head clear and let me attack another week with a fresh head of steam.