We decided to try the hike to Barclay Lake in part because none of us had been there since before the Bolt Creek fire and in part because it was an easy trail to take with a toddler. We arrived at the trailhead at about 11:00 and took our time. There were about a dozen cars in the lot and just a couple parked on the road. The toilet at the trailhead was open and stocked and relatively clean.
It was a cool, cloudy day with the promise of rain later in the day, so the forest was dark and moody leaving the trailhead, with a gentle downhill. We started to notice a wide variety of mushrooms along the trail and a few muddy spots, but not too bad. The trail was not crowded. On reaching the burned area we could see bare trees extending uphill on the right of the trail, but not much below the trail to the left. Beyond the burn area was a section with large trees growing on top of equally massive boulders. Truly impressive,
Arriving at the lake we found a few of the campsites occupied, but everyone was just relaxing and enjoying the afternoon. The lake was about 3-4 feet below normal levels, so the ends were marshy and along the north side of the lake a gravelly beach was exposed. This was really nice for our toddler to get to walk right down to the water's edge.
Mount Baring was its usual imposing self above the lake. Interestingly, much of the forest facing towards the lake seemed to escape the ravages of the big fire. We did encounter a few sprinkles while at the lake but returned to the cars just before it started raining in earnest.
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