We arrived at the Wallace Falls parking around 3 PM on a Thursday afternoon. There was plenty of parking, which is not always the case on the weekends. We checked in at the ranger station for permits. This was a last-minute trip, so we had called the day before to reserve spots at Jay Lake, and were lucky to hear back the next morning. For spots at Wallace Lake, it would probably be better to call earlier. The ranger was very helpful with providing directions to the lake, and even sent us up with two rolls of TP to restock the biffy.
Despite the ranger's detailed instructions, signs with maps, and written directions we had brought, we somehow managed to take a wrong turn at the beginning and ended up hiking most of the way up the DNR road. At the first intersection of the trail with the sign "DNR road to Wallace Lake," go to the right to reach the intersection for the Greg Ball trail. Though it added 2-3 extra miles and was much more exposed to the sun, the DNR road was surprisingly beautiful with views of the surrounding mountains framed by foxglove and daisies. It worked out as a great loop because we were able to take the Greg Ball trail back down the next day. In the future, I would do the loop the opposite way to get the shady trail on the way up and the views on the way down.
We made it to the campsite at Jay Lake in around 4 hours. This could have been done more quickly, but we took frequent breaks for the ripe salmon and huckleberries along the trail. The trail to Jay Lake itself is slightly overgrown. In spots where it was overgrown with stinging nettles and devil's club (nature's toilet paper), it would have been nice to be wearing pants. The campsites at Jay Lake are in amazing condition! The tent pads were mostly clear, though a little small. We had a 3-person tent and had to stake it outside the box, but that was not a big deal. The water access is not great and would strongly recommend filtering any drinking water at Wallace Lake. We would also strongly recommend bug spray as the mosquitos and biting flies were having a buffet while we made dinner.
The biffy is a composting toilet. It is by far the nicest backcountry bathroom I have ever seen: it smells like pine wood shavings; it has a stocked hand sanitizer dispenser; and it now has five rolls of toilet paper. The third cool campsite amenity was the bear bucket. I had never heard of this before, and we had trouble finding it in the dark as we were expecting a box on the ground. Luckily, we had brought a bear can anyways, so our breakfast burritos were safe. The bear bucket is past the biffy, following the footpath to the right. It is a white gallon bucket suspended above the ground by a pulley system.
Going down the next day, the Greg Ball trail was surrounded by huckleberries. By snacking along the way, we effectively doubled the time it took to get back to the parking lot. The most shocking part of this hike was that we ran into so few groups. Given the popularity of the Wallace Falls trail, it was very surprising that we ran into only four groups in two days.
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