Huntington Reservoir to North Fork of Lake Canyon

June 30, 2024

This is part three of a 12-day RV camping trip to Skyline Drive. The day before I’d hiked down from Skyline Drive into the North Fork of Lake Canyon. This day I decided to hike from Huntington Reservoir up to the same lake I’d visited the previous day, completing the hike of the entire drainage. There were a few people fishing at the reservoir but after that I wouldn’t see anyone else for the remainder of the hike. I started off across the dam and picked up the trail on the other side. Immediately upon entering the aspens I began seeing some carvings, including one was mostly illegible dating back to 1933.

Huntington Reservoir

Huntington Reservoir dam

Huntington Reservoir glory hole

Below Huntington Reservoir spillway

Mi pico

Umm.

1933 aspen carving

Illegible aspen carving

Farther up were more…interesting…carvings from South American sheepherders. The trail was in good shape, alternating between open sections and dense trees, with a few very minor water crossings and a gentle ascent.

Trail through grasses and dandelions

Edwin, Peru, 2014-2020

Lake Canyon

Aspen carving of a woman

Another aspen carving of a woman

Thanks, J.S.!

Columbine

Aspen carving of a man’s head?

Where the trail emerged above the treeline into a huge meadow there were several small waterfalls along the creek. There I left the Towhead trail and headed toward the lake. There were a couple of short but steep climbs and a lot of dense false hellebore to shwack through. In one place there was a bit of a game trail through the vegetation and a deer came trotting along quickly, directly at me, and it very clearly didn’t see me until I hollered at it. Then it stopped and stared for a few moments before slowly turning around and walking off.

Upper trail where it breaks out of the trees

Waterfall

Off-trail following the stream

Point 9,983′ where I was the day before

Meadow panorama

Light bushwhacking through false hellebore

Maybe a dinosaur track?

Heavy bushwhacking through tall false hellebore

A deer that almost ran into me

I reached the lake and found a nice boulder to sit on near the shore and ate some lunch. Then I shouldered my pack and headed back down, avoiding the bushwhack this time. I cruised quickly along the dowhill section of trail, but about two-thirds of the way down I left the trail to check out an old canal visible in satellite imagery that used to feed into Huntington Reservoir. It begins just below the confluence of the North Fork and South Fork, and when I arrived there I couldn’t see any diversion structure, and the head of the canal was relatively high above the creek. I imagine there must have been a small dam here to divert the water but it has long since been removed. I had planned to follow the canal all the way back to the reservoir but it was rough going, so when I got close enough to the trail I cut through the forest to regain it. Back at the truck my GPS registered 6.5 miles–for the second day in a row I’d done my longest hike of the year.

Approaching the lake