I thought I would try this lake since they improved the road. Years ago there was no way I could drive my car down it because there were these gnarly bumps and potholes everywhere. It was very easy to navigate now, except there's lots of turn off roads that I imagine are old logging roads. I went down a few of the wrong ones once in my car and once on foot, not fun. But the trailhead is marked right around the main sign you park by. Make sure you look around first so you don't go down a logging road like I did!

I think the big damper on the whole experience for this hike is driving by 2 areas that are a shooting range for anyone that shows up. It's littered with tons of bullet casings all over the place. Plus the fact that the trailhead says high crime area with frequent car break-ins is a little unsettling for me. It's too bad people out in nature don't appreciate it as much as the rest of us.

Anyway, the trail was alright, not my favorite. But I had it to myself, and there were some nice areas. I always enjoy seeing the lakes no matter where I am. And I noticed there are 3 nice camping spots by boardman lake, and a few small beaches where people can hang out at.

I want to say it's a great place. I always love nature. It's just those few things I mentioned earlier that put a little bit of uncomfortableness to that area. And most of it looked like it had been logged over, except of course the trail itself. So not a lot of old growth anywhere. Anyway, not a bad hike. Pretty easy to get to, but you have to pay attention where you're putting your feet cuz there's lots of roots everywhere.

We have always skipped over this option before as it offers a low reward for the drive time for us, but right now we are focused on shorter, easier hikes and this offered the bonus of being a new adventure as well.  I still don't think this is worth a full day by itself but by adding it to a fall "day out" on the mountain loop, it's a good choice.  They are, or have been, working on the forest road - road signs but no activity, and the road is very sedan friendly right now.  No potholes, no rocky cobbles, no trenches etc.  The road does climb and twist quite a bit and can be narrow in places so take care, there are plenty of spots to pull over if you need to.  You do pass a nasty party clearing with trash near the start and what looks like a busy shooting pit, full of ammo debris, near the trail head.  No one there yesterday.  Navigating to the trail head was made easier with a Caltopo cheat sheet, there are a few spur roads etc that could confuse you.  Contrary to the description the trail head is not easy to miss.  It's more like a road end with the continuing forest road reduced to a grassy track.  Decent amount of space to turn and park and a kiosk with a small map.  No outhouse - the one at the Verlot Ranger station on the way in was open and stocked, hot water too.

Find the entrance to the trail slightly recessed at the east end of the parking area.  We had the trail to ourselves, both up and back.  It's obviously an old trail and doesn't seem to have seen much maintenance.  So although short I would not call it easy.  There is one impressive rooty section near the start, then some decent tread but the closer you get to the lake the rougher it gets, trenching and rocks mostly.  At the lake we admired the view and explored the shoreline, and then decided to check on the campsites.  The log jam looked sketchy but there are enough well placed rocks in the water you can rock hop across at the outlet.  It's now a short veggie belay scramble up the half missing stairs.  We wandered around and found about three campsites but overgrown social trails made it hard to figure out exactly how the campsite fitted together like we saw on the trail head kiosk map.  If your coming for lunch the beach offers the best sunny and warm spot, and the best place to admire the fall colors running up the sides of the mountains.

With the rough tread I had to stop to admire the forest - some really big old trees many broken and some nice under-story.  A few mushrooms.  I'm not sure I need to come back, but the solitude and amazing colors at the lake made for a pleasant outing.

Did a Tuesday afternoon hike to Boardman Lake, the road was super nice now, freshly graded with maybe one tiny pothole to be found. Note that the road does a sharp turn to the right just before the trailhead, with a side road going straight ahead that is not marked, causing some confusion as to which was the main road. The Boardman trail was quite good, just the usual suspects of roots and rocks, and a kinda steep spot as you get to the lake.

Some beach right where you hit the lake, but to go around to other sites to the left, you have to walk over the log jam and up a few old beat-up plank steps. Most hikers won't have a problem.

Came back down to the intersection with road 2041 that has a sign for Pinnacle and Bear lakes, plus another. This road we found nicely graded for about a mile (est.), then it got instantly BAD. The road equipment was parked at the intersection, so assume the road work will continue to the Bear Lake trailhead. But the couple miles not worked on yet got narrow, very rocky and some monstrous potholes that could almost swallow a small car, not to mention a small washout gulch I had to inch through at the edge of the brush.

I managed VERY carefully to get through with a Toyota Camry, but you have to scrape the brush on the sides to get through in a few places. Places to turn out or around were very few, so continued on. I would not do that again unless with a high clearance rig. Then, I'm guessing about 3/4 of a mile from the trailhead there was a tree fallen across the road, about a foot in diameter, so just parked there and walked to the trailhead, about a 15 minute trek. Hopefully someone has come with a saw and removed it by now.

The trail was not bad, had to crawl over a log in one place, but it is not the smooth gentle path the description made it out to be. Nice lake with some nice camp sites for such a short hike...the sign says three tenths of a mile. Would come back again when the road work is done.

Fresh off our hike to Ashland Lakes we decided to tackle Boardman Lake as well, since it's off the same forest road and is such a short hike (two miles roundtrip). As mentioned in my Ashland report the road is being re-graded so it's suitable for all vehicles. We reached the trailhead around 1:20pm and there were seven other cars parked there. By then the sun was popping out of the clouds and haze and it was getting pretty warm.

Lake Evans is reached just a few hundred yards into the trail and is worthy of a short stop to take it in, but the real prize lies not far beyond. The roughly one-mile trail to Boardman Lake is lined with many impressive old-growth snags and a few surviving giants that somehow escaped the logger's saw. Unfortunately for my arachnophobic friend though it was also lined with spider webs, and she had me take point to act as a web catcher. It turned out to be a good idea as I eventually came face-to-face with a decent-sized spider dangling down from an overhead tree branch, just managing to avoid wearing it after which I moved it over to a nearby bush.

Upon reaching the lake we found several people fishing, mostly families who were likely camped there. Fortunately there are several decent spots along the shore where you can rest and have a snack break, which we did. You do have to walk across the logs bunched up at the lake outlet and then climb a very steep and badly degraded set of stairs in order to find the best spots, but it's doable by most.

We were back at our vehicle by 3:50pm and counted roughly the same number of parked cars as before. It's a very nice and pretty hike, but if you're a day-hiker I'd recommend combining it with Ashland or Pinnacle Lakes, or maybe even Big Four Ice Caves since it's such a short trail.

Road up to the trailhead had a few potholes and roots but overall not too bad. There was one other car parked there, enough space for maybe 5-6 cars. Some steep, rooty, rocky areas on the trail but all areas passable.