SHHHH...It's a Secret! Sort of?

"Can I ask you ladies how you found this place?" was the question asked us by a couple young men as we were half way up the secret trail.

Heidi lit up because now she could tell her story: "About 30 years ago, an old friend told me of a beautiful area that was his secret place. I asked, 'How do I find it?' Looking into his piercing ice blue eyes, he said 'I won't tell you, you'll have to find it yourself!' He called the area the 'Poor Man's Enchantments' and he would only tell me I needed to start on the Pinnacle Lake trail. I kept coming back and rooting around until I finally figured out where to go." 

Impressed, the guys said they had only found it because they saw all these lakes on Google Maps and figured there must be a way to get to them. 

Then I answered, "I found it on AllTrails under Herman's Peak." Wah, wah...way to spoil the fun, KellBell!  

It's sad we have so few secrets or mysteries anymore. All the information all the time makes Jack a dull boy. Sorry that I am giving all the info out too; but if the only thing you need to do is search "bathtub lakes" on an app and it pops up complete with navigational assistance, the cat is already out of the bag, isn't it? 

So instead of trying to keep the "Poor Man's Enchantments" a secret, I'll instead give you a few reasons why you don't want to go there, which you'll find below on my usual "things to know" list. There is also a video mash up on YouTube. Happy "secret's out" trails!  

Thing to Know about Bathtub Lakes: 

1)  The half hour drive up the forest road is one of the worst I've ever been on, if not the worst. If you don't have a high clearance vehicle, don't even think about it. And expect to get scratches along your car's sides. 

2) Even with navigational assistance, you are making your own way up. And when I say up, I mean literally climbing rocks. 

3) Did I mention rocks? Like a lot of them? And the kind that are easy to dislodge and have come down on anyone who is below you? 

4) I know I'm slow, but this is SLOW territory. It may only be 7 miles, but we were on the trail for 9 and a half hours! Alltrails has us moving for only 7 of them, but I swear we barely took a break. I think the majority of our "not moving" time was just staring at the "trail" and trying to figure out the best way to maneuver over it.  

Sammie thinks we did a perfect sloth speed ;)

5) What goes up must come down, and lowering myself over and over again down the very big rocks and then finally roots absolutely destroyed me. Seriously the most sore I've been in years.  

6) If you still want to do it, there is still snow in "Iodine Gulch." You'll want to veer to the right of it...and when I say veer I mean claw/scramble.  

If you've made it to here, you're golden! Until it's time to go down, that is!