Pros of this hike: gentle grade and doable distance for my reluctant tween hikers; SOLITUDE! Only hikers all day on a Friday; More thimbleberries and black raspberries then I've ever seen, ate our fill; perfect lake swimming temp. Abundant salamanders and snake! in the water. Easy drive for our minivan, clear directions.
Cons: HORSEFLIES. 2/3 way through hike, horseflies starting buzzing around in circles, following us all the way down the trail. Present at the lake when we arrived, enough so that I thought we might need to leave. Eventually left us alone to enjoy the lake, but bothered my kids a lot. The hike is completely dry except the lake. We were swimming so it was no problem to wade out past the squelchy bottom to clear water, but would be hard to access water from the shore.
Other notes: if you hike in the middle of the day, I think you'd be in full sun. We hiked in starting 11am and hiked out at 5, so were shaded from either side of the trail. The wildflowers are past their peak but still pretty. The lake is definitely shrinking - see photo - so it's more like a really large pond. The area to sit is what used to be lake bottom, so it's a bit graded and can be muddy. I didn't see any way to camp around the lake, no level or brush-free spots.
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