Search trip reports
Placeholder Routes & Places

Trip Report    

Day Hike - Lake Serene

Day hike to Lake Serene - Nov 12 2016

Mark Scheffer Mark Scheffer
November 14, 2016
  • Road suitable for all vehicles

  • The Trail  was very straight forward to follow.  However, the trail was in less than wonderful condition in a number of places but passable.  Due to the rain some of the streams were almost impassible without getting your feet wet.   

This route is hazardous to people that are signed up if it is raining.  of the 11 on the roster the evening before ALL but 4 of the party came down with a new or reoccurance of a cold, had some "unavoidable" conflict, dog ate their homework, etc... most between 6am to 7am Saturday morning and had to canceled off. (-;

We arrived at the trailhead about 8:45am in a pouring rain. there was already 6-8 cars there anyway.  the parking lot would be full when we returned around 12:30pm.  It is easy to see why all reports talk about this parking lot overflowing with traffic by mid day on a sunny weekend when it can fill by noon even on a day that poured rain almost non-stop.  There was an endless stream of tennis shoes, blue jeans, and other ill advised clothed hikers heading up the trail on our way out.  

We set a moderate pace and, even with the almost non-stop down pour, we were at the lake in 2 hours.  The return was considerably faster and round trip time was 3.5 hours.  Due to the rain (and wind on the upper trail) we elected to take a couple photo's and immediately start hiking back out.  There were zero views to be had and you could barely see across the lake to the other shore due to the very foul weather.  This was easily the wettest trip I've done in several years.