Trip Report
CHS 1 Hike - Wallace & Jay Lakes
Beautiful quiet morning hike to both lakes along the Greg Ball Trail. Not a soul until we returned to the Falls trail for the final (hot!) mile out. Strong students showed an impressive 2.4 mph moving pace.
Courtenay Schurman
- Tue, Jul 29, 2025
- CHS 1 Hike - Wallace & Jay Lakes
- Wallace Falls
- Day Hiking
- Successful
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- Road suitable for all vehicles
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This state park has very impressive facilities throughout, from the fully stocked outhouse at the Railroad Grade/ Greg Ball intersection, to the food storage boxes, compost toilets, and camping areas at Wallace and Jay Lakes. We even pondered some sticks left behind, clearly foliage messages for other groups on other days.
The trail is in great condition, only a blowdown or two -- easily crossed -- and it looked like some overgrowth had been trimmed back on the way north to Wallace and Jay Lakes. We had Pebble Beach entirely to ourselves for lunch/wading at 11 and we didn't encounter a single backpacker or hiker on the north trails until we returned to the much more heavily traveled Falls trail, a mile from the trailhead.
Four of us left the Wallace Falls State Park parking lot at 7 a.m. on a Tuesday (7/29/25) and had the Greg Ball trail to Pebble Beach and Jay Lake pretty much all to ourselves. The parking lot only had a few cars (backpackers, people with dogs) when I arrived at 6:30. At 1:10 it was more like half full.
With 3 backpackers in our group, we found ourselves discussing the pros and cons of Wallace vs. Jay Lake. While the camp platforms, food storage, signage, and privy were amazing at Jay, lake access was a bit muddy and murky (see above) whereas Pebble Beach at north Wallace Lake won hands down for best lunch spot.
On the day, we enjoyed 22 bird species including several flycatchers, a few types of thrushes, a few warblers, a raven and some starlings. We saw a few foxgloves, pink Douglas spiraea near Jay Lake, and my favorites, maidenhair ferns, although they looked pretty dried out. We also saw another type of berry plant I wasn't familiar with, the "Watermelon berry."
The lower path is hot and dusty, but Wallace/Jay are quite comfortable even in the July heat. It made for a very pleasant and brisk paced hike. Our moving speed was 2.4 mph and we covered 11.4 miles in about 6 hours with a 35-minute snack and wade break at Pebble Beach.
I'm less familiar with US-2 peaks than I-90 peaks, but we could see Baring, Philadelphia, Index and Pt. Persis from under the electrical wires 5 minutes from the parking lot.