Eagle Lakes

We made our first attempt on Phoenix lake/ Old Man Mountain from the southwest today, but it didn't go that well. My idea was to drive up to Eagle Lake and the follow Fordyce Creek to the mountain. As usual, reality truned out to be a little different from google maps and the maps on our GPS. We realized pretty quickly that the road was beyond the normal standards of "high clearance 4wd" and into the realm of the purpose built rock crawler. Seriously, this is not a road, this is a boulder strewn hillside

which unsurprisingly smelled like engine oil.
We walked north and found a bridge across the creek and started eastwards towards the mountain. The terrain made it difficult to follow the creek and we soon gave up, panned for gold and found the motherlode of mica! We're rich, RICH I tells ya (doing a Walter Huston Gold dance)! I should also mention that Fordyce Creek is not really a creek, but a freezing cold river with an impressive amount of water running through it. We gradually decided that it was time to try to get back to the south side of the creek, but crossings were not forthcoming and we ended up having to climb a few slabs and hop from rock to rock.

At one point I had the spooky feeling that I was in the perfect habitat for snakes and that there was probably a rattlesnake just waiting to sink its little fangs into my ankle. In fact, I thought that I had actually heard a hiss, but since the chances of that are pretty remote, I told myself that I was being a wuss and continued whacking the bushes around me with my trekking pole. I was standing on a 2x2 foot rock about a foot away from shore at this point. I took a break from the bush whacking to take in the smell and beauty of the the huge incense cedars along the riverside, when I heard it again -- another hiss. Chloe was about 150 feet down the "trail" from me, and I was now officially freaked out, so I decided to backtrack. However, when I tried to take my first step my foot started slipping. It just didn't feel right, so I looked down and discovered that I was standing on a two foot long, very pissed off snake. I jumped into the air and let out a manly yell (girly shriek) and the snake slithered off into the water.

After running down stream and trying to slow down my now racing heartbeat, it was once again time to look for a river crossing. The best we could find was a slimy log which the glacial water would periodically wash over in a wave of bone chilling goodness. Chloe shimmied across it and after watching her get soaked, I decided to take a chance and jump from one side of the rocks to the other, which went off without a hitch. We sat in the sun for an hour or so, waiting for Chloe's pants and shoes to dry off

And panned for more mica. I'll order my Greek island on Amazon tomorrow.

we headed southeast and after a few more exciting crossings


found ourselves back at Eagle Lake. The light was terrible but the lily pads on these lakes are quite pretty



After a thankfully traffic free drive home with a stop at Ikedas, we discovered that a rabbit had escaped from one of the neighbors hard and was hopping around near the fences

I tried to herd it back through the hole in the fence, but Bugs was having none of it and I didn't really want to get bitten by a rabbit, so I didn't tackle it. Good luck against the cats tonight little buddy!