Mason Lake with a bit of Sir Richard's Pond

It was supposed to be just Mason Lake. The trail is already a little over 7 miles and around 2300ft of elevation, but it didn’t seem that bad and I still had restless energy when I got to the lake, so I tacked on another couple miles to check out Sir Richard’s Pond.

It’s really sometimes impossible to capture just how steep some sections of the trail are. The shot above plunges down the side of a mountain at an angle that is very unfriendly, but it doesn’t look all that bad in the picture, does it?

As I was walking along the ridge, the mountains would come into view and then get obscured by clouds, sometimes so quickly that the mountain was gone in the time it took to get my camera out of its bag. I don’t mean a backpack, I mean a crossbody where the time between “oooh, let’s take a picture!” and having it turned on and up to my face is about 5-7 seconds. I promise you there was a really pretty mountain peak on the right side of the below image. ::sigh::

No really.

But I couldn’t stay mad about it because then I got out on the switchbacks and the entire valley opened up before me.

There were a fair number of people at Mason Lake because there’s a campground along one side. Kids playing, dogs jumping into the water, and folks fishing along the quieter edges. With a little patience, I was able to capture the the stillness of the water while I ate my lunch on a boulder. I also nearly lost my phone in that beautifully clear water when I missed the pocket on my bag and watched it hit the rock and start to slide off the edge. Absolute panic and elevated heart rate.

So many water striders on the lake, too.

Human for scale.

This is where the trail was supposed to end and I was supposed to turn around, but the weather was gloriously cool and the sky was interesting and I am relentlessly curious. There were a number of trails continuing on from the lake, so I poked around the map looking for what else might be nearby, which is how I found Sir Richard’s Pond. Small, not far, and something else to see while I was in the neighborhood. Unlike a few other trails, this one didn’t seem like it had a lot elevation, so packed myself up and went for a walk.

It was not a walk. Oh, there were some lovely flat bits that meandered through the pine forests, but those were punctuated by short, very steep hills that started to add up to more elevation than I’d really planned on. However, I had committed to seeing this pond, so I pushed on. I didn’t see anyone else on the trail, and passed by a cave that almost certainly has a large furry occupant in the winter months. I yelled “hey bear!” a lot. I began to question if I had made a smart choice.

Gentle readers, it was all worth it.

Sure, it was messy with reeds and lilly pads and grasses, but it was like a little oasis in the forest. Everything around it was so intensely green. And calm. Quiet in a way that the larger lakes often aren’t because they’re popular with hikers and therefore you’re always surrounded by activity. Here, I was alone.

After walking around part of the pond and enjoying the serenity, I headed back to Mason Lake. The sky was changing, clearing, and I wondered if I might get some different shots in the new conditions. The sun was now quite a bit higher in the sky, and made the light a little more harsh, but seeing a little bit of blue poking out was still a welcome sight.

What was especially nice was the hike back along the ridge, getting to see all the mountains that were partially or completely obscured just a couple hours earlier.

Oh hey, mountains!