Trip Report
Bertha May and Granite Lakes — Saturday, Oct. 3, 2015
South Cascades > White Pass/Cowlitz River Valley
Type of Hike
Day hikeTrail Conditions
Trail in good conditionRoad
Road rough but passableBugs
Bugs were not too badSnow
Snow free
Okay, I'm not as prepared to write this trip report as I would have liked to be, but I just couldn't leave it alone. The description is a bit deceiving. This is by no means my first time in the woods or hiking but normally when I'm going into it without directions, I'll bring my Garmin with me to track my trail and distance, etc. For the most part, the driving directions are correct. Forest Road 84 is not marked with a sign, so people have spray painted "high rock" on the road.. you'll want to turn there. It's only after you get to the trail head on FS Road 8410 that things start to get a little wonky. The first lake that you encounter is Pothole lake (it's not a detour like they would have you believe). You would then continue on past Pothole on a nice clear trail to a bridge that is broken and a bit questionable. Cross that bridge and begin your trek up hill. Now, if you were just ho-humming along, you would completely miss the switchback that you need to take to Bertha May Lake. Keep your eyes peeled, it'll be on your left, and if you continue straight you'll end up on trail #250 (you want to be on #251, not marked). All the signs for the lakes aren't surviving well either.. half broken or scratched out, so don't count on those...
You'll soon bump into Bertha May Lake, on our trip there were some campers up here who were also floating around the lake fishing, drinking, and having what appeared to be a nice time. Here, you will find the only completely legible sign stating "Bertha May", under that is a scratched out "Teely Creek Trail" and a half broken "Granite Lake and Cora Lake" sign. When you're done enjoying Bertha May, continue on to Granite Lake (you may have to meander around to find the start of the trail again, but it's there, promise). Granite Lake is another trek uphill and a little bit farther in distance from Bertha May than the distance from Pothole but still not too bad. Once there, it's probably a good time to stop if you wanted to do a half day trip or if you wanted time to have lunch and enjoy the scenery.
After Granite Lake is when we began to get frustrated, we hiked for an hour and a half past the lake only to encounter absolutely nothing to indicate where we were, or where we were headed, all we knew is that Cora Lake should have been somewhere... But since we didn't start hiking until around 11:30, we had to worry about getting back to the truck before dark and at this point we were getting pretty thirsty. (This was our fault, one water bottle each was not enough to sustain our stubbornness to continue hiking to find Cora Lake). We turned around and started walking back, and overall the round trip hike took us about 5 hours. (I really wish I had tracked distances for you all, my apologies).
At this point, I was a little mad that we didn't make it to Cora Lake so when we got back to civilization, I looked it up. I have attached link to a map created by USDA for Gifford Pinchot. If you want the easy trail to Cora, which is the one we were expecting, you'll want to drive up to FS Road 8420 and that will bring you to the trail head that is just a very short ways to Cora Lake... However, if we had continued on our path, we supposedly should have bumped into a trail that would lead us down to Cora Lake, but at no point in that hour and half did I see any branching off of trails or signs.. and if there had been a branch off that I missed, it looks like I would have just popped out on FS Road 8440 (high rock).
If I return (which will probably be after winter) I will be sure to bring Garmin with me to track my distance and everything else so I can provide a more appropriate report. Until then, I hope this helps any other poor souls who thought they were in for a simple 4mi round trip hike...
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