Applegate Lake Loop 1-1-25

Photos by Francie

Ashland Hiking Home

On Wednesday January 1st, we started the new year with 8 hikers going out to Applegate Lake to hike from the French Gulch trailhead.  The temperature was 37° and it was raining.  

We started on the Payette trail and made our way up to a trail junction.  I decided to go up the Calsh trail to get the uphill done before lunch.  At one point we stopped to gather everyone together.  We continued up to the Dagelma trailhead where I made multiple mistakes.  The first was thinking everyone was still grouped close enough together so I didn't need to stop at a trail junction (this was my second mistake) and my 3rd mistake was taking the Sinns-Bar trail instead of the Prospector's loop to the Osprey trail.  After hiking for a bit, we stopped to re-gather as 3 hikers were not with the group.  I called out and could here voices so we thought they were just coming up slower.  After a bit longer I realized I had taken the wrong trail.  I hadn't done the hike in this direction for many years and didn't remeber there being this trail.  We headed back down and could not find the other hikers.  We called out several times and blew our whistles since the 3 hikers did not have a walkie talkie. What happened was the other 3 hikers went the correct way, but when they didn't connect with us, they went back to the junction of the Prospector's loop and the Osprey trail.  They had heard us above them, so they went up the Prospector's trail.  We had just missed them there. I ran down the trail hoping to find them.  We came out to the Payette trail and had no sign of them.  Someone thought they heard voices from the lunch area so we loudly blew our whistles.  We started in that direction.  Someone turned around and noticed our 3 missing hikers were just coming down the Osprey trail to the Payette trail.  We were all gathered together and continued on to lunch.  This was a good lesson that I need to visually see every hiker and stop at every trail junction and we need to have a sweep that carries a walkie talkie.

We enjoyed our lunch at Hal's Point and Nanci shared some chocolate from Costa Rica. After lunch, we headed back on the Payette trail to our cars. We had hiked 8.14 miles with 1,033 feet of gain.

We went to the Bella Union for refreshments.  I was gifted 3 pairs of my favorite socks- Darn Tough and also a new copy of 100 Hikes in Southern Oregon as I had lost my copy.  There was also a nice card signed by many of the hikers.

Francie