Lake Evan and Boardman Lake

Another short, easy hike this past week.  This time we went to two lakes, Lake Evan and Boardman Lake, which are on the Mountain Loop Highway just past Granite Falls and the Verlot Ranger station. 

The Verlot Ranger Station and visitor center looks like a little house.  The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) built it in the 1930s.   It has a small museum with early historical photos and information about the area.  For more about the Ranger Station and the CCC see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verlot_Ranger_Station-Public_Service_Center
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Conservation_Corps

It was foggy in the city but the sun was shining in the mountains.  The trail is full of roots and rocks in places but has so many big trees and then opens out to the beautiful isolated lakes.  Lake Evan is just a short distance from the trailhead.  The water was still as a mirror reflecting the trees. 

The bunchberry leaves had turned mostly red

There were a lot of snag trees that had bleached out to silver, were still standing, but no long growing.
 

We continued up the trail until we came to Boardman Lake.  It was as calm as Lake Evan had been providing more reflections. 

There were patches of brilliant colors on the hillside above the lake.

This area was logged a long time ago but there are still some really big, old trees standing in the forest.

The tree shown below was originally growing on a nurse log or nurse stump but time and weather have eroded away the remains of the first tree and left this interesting tree with open roots.

It is getting a little too late in the season to see many flowers in bloom, however, we did come across a few Solomon Seal plants that had gone to seed.

There were some mushrooms (toadstools) too.

This hike is about 2 miles round trip.  Except for all the roots and rocks it was an easy hike with only about a 300 feet elevation gain.  Driving back we got views of beautiful scenery wherever we looked.