Hears Different Drummer: Backpacking trip: day two, Cathedral camp to Elbow lake

Friday, July 26, 2019

Backpacking trip: day two, Cathedral camp to Elbow lake

Day two was a day of hearts! I love to find hearts in nature and today was a great one.

Our hike from Cathedral camp led us first down to Morovitz meadow.

Photo courtesy of USFS

We had a great view of the Sisters range and the shelter as we made our way down the switchbacks.

Mazama camp

Here we go, new territory for us. We've gone to Elbow lake from the Pioneer camp direction but never from this route. Now it seems that the road to Pioneer camp has a slide and is closed to cars, so the only routes to the lake are from the Middle fork of the Nooksack river (which you have to ford because there isn't a bridge to cross there) and over Bell Pass.

Heart rock❤

We found out that this trail isn't used or maintained much. There were several trees we had to climb over and around as well as lots of thick vegetation and narrow sections to get through,

but a beautiful trail❤

One of the many trees on the trail.

Finally to the Elbow lake junction.

A heart on a tree❤

We took the turn to Elbow camp, not a good plan. It was a up and down mountain goat trail at best along the shore of the lake. It led to a very brushy area that presumably was the camp, but it looked like a great area to see the kind of animal we don't want to see near our camp not to mention all of the mosquitoes that were there.

Needless to say we turned around and camped at a nice spot just across the bridge along Lake Doreen. The two lakes are side by side. In the photo below you can see the elbow of Elbow lake.

A heart rock just near our camp spot.

Lake Doreen

Camp for the night. Time to set out our sweaty clothes on the bushes so they can hopefully dry. The clouds had come in so we prepared for rain. There were some mosquitoes so we also put on our head bug nets.