It was a later start then we wanted. Seems like it always takes at least an hour or more to go up these roads to the trailhead from town. Certainly not a bad road but washboard roads are not my favorite. There are so many campsites that it certainly would have been easy to camp.

What we would have liked to have done if we could have left home earlier on Wednesday would be to backpack the 3 miles, 1000ish feet to the lake and camp there. Could have slept in and got an earlier start! Beautiful place to camp and fish if you like. Bugs are bad right now. Wear mosquito clothing.

We missed the Rockdale turnoff and had to turn around. Not a long delay, but would have been nice to be better labeled. Maybe we just didn't see it. There is a road number which we have forgotten. Then you have to know to go left to the creek. Not sure where the road to the right goes.

So, at 545 we were finally checking out the creeks. We didn't pause at the first stream for long, it was relatively low. Was a little deeper at the end. We could definitely see why you wouldn't want to cross this in the early season.

We decided against the second stream, not because of the water but because the exit from the stream was so uneven on a steep incline. There would not be any way to back up or adjust if needed. Pictures don't do it justice. There is room between the streams to park so we settled on the idea of crossing that cold ass stream on foot.

We had neoprene socks for fishing in the truck so we used those with our croc's and hid them in the bushes on the other side. On toward the lake. Parts of that road are pretty rough but wouldn't have been too difficult to drive. I think it was here that I realized I forgot my microspikes.

The trail wasn't hard to follow after the gate. Taking the left trail, there was a pretty short but steep section to hike along the stream. We didn't care to take the short cut. The stream was nice.

Once out of the drainage, we got a good look at the long grassy slope to go up next.

With every step I fumed more and more about the forgotten microspikes. This was the perfect terrain for them. It is an interesting mental game on these climbs sometimes. The funk of negativity builds on itself. More things irritated me and I began feeling like crap. Once I changed my attitude and thought about all of the positive things around me, I felt so much better.

The ridge was really fun and a nice break from the grassy slope. The crux was nowhere near as difficult as I thought it might be for the dogs. It looked like banana peel dirt down the middle so I downclimbed over on the left side.

We reached the summit at 10 and spent some time up there since it was nice. Congrats to the young guys who climbed Belford and Oxford then Missouri on no sleep. That is a lot of elevation at one time.

We headed back and my heart sunk a little at the top of the grassy hill. But I am blessed with a husband who so graciously lent me his spikes for the downhill slog. So grateful!

I offered to hang them on the dog's collar and have them brought back to him but turns out you can hike pretty well without them. I just feel a lot more stable and have less slipping with them.

We made it back to the lake around noon and was able to fish for an hour and a half. The lake is beautiful and good for small Brook trout. The inlet was fun.

We all were able to enjoy the cold stream back at the truck. It got pretty warm that day, 70s I think. Back by 3.