[pianodirt]

After much thought and reading reports, we turned around on the "U-Road" in Quincy, originally heading for the "high route" to Ancient Lakes and decided to go in on the "low route". We arrived at the trailhead about 1:30pm on Saturday. There were a few cars there. A family out on a day of fishing was just returning. We started on the road-trail and took the first left, which is one of several trails that go up the coulee to Ancient Lakes. We came upon a dead rattlesnake on the trail, sans head and rattle, it was about 15 inches long. We came across some other snakes on the trip, but they had no rattles. The 3 or so miles the guidebook says seem rather short. I wasn't paying attention to the time, but it felt like it was about an hour for us to reach the lakes. We camped at the lower campground between the two northern lakes. I recommend the higher camps just a short walk south on the little arm. The lower camp had a strong urine smell in spots, right where I had set up my tent, but fortunately as the temperature dropped, the aroma did as well. I didn't notice the smell until shortly before it started a good downpour and didn't feel like moving the tent. There were four fishermen at one of the lakes when we arrived. They soon left and we had the whole place to ourselves the rest of our time there. I was expecting many more people, but I guess the gloomy weather kept folks at home painting their kitchens. We went for a walk east up the waterfall. We were glad we hadn't come in the high route simply because of the short little scree section along the waterfall that would've been a bit more difficult with packs on. We walked up along the series of waterfalls and cross country a bit over to H Lake. It was a beautiful walk...the flowers, the smells, the view and as others have noted, the quiet. Just as we arrived back at our camp, it started to pour. I think something I will add as a mainstay to my pack from now on is a tarp that can be set up to keep stuff dry, cook under and remove super-wet clothing like rain jackets and pant. It sucks having two people in a tiny tent with wet clothes and a wet dog. It rained for about an hour and then we cooked dinner and went to bed. Next morning it rained off and on for a couple hours and we just slept late until the rain stopped. After breakfast, we packed up and found a trail the went up the butte that divides Ancient and Dusty lakes. We got over the top of the butte and started coming down but it got steep, we couldn't see much of a trail and the trail we did see looked like it just walked off of the cliff. It was scree everywhere. We were satisfied with our view of Dusty Lake and decided to turn around come out the same coulee we walked in on. We had a good time. I'll probably return again sometime, maybe in April or early May for better flowers, though there were still plenty around and some still coming. I've seen worse trash, but there was a fair amount. We came out with a 13-gallon garbage sack full of garbage, most of it stuff we picked up. Lots of beer cans and styrofoam worm containers. Unless you're not picky about your water, be sure to either haul in your water or bring a good filter. The water comes from farmlands that I imagine have some rather undesirable runoffs that end up in this water. The lake bottom is very silty and I found it difficult to find a good spot to do the filtering. Funny thing was, the best spots I found were right were large schools of bluegill fish were hanging out, they seem fairly oblivious to me and the end of my filter hose in the water. And before someone points it out, yes, we probably just drank some filtered fish piss.

[polarbear]

pianodirt, I'm curious how much water is in the falls. Did you take any pictures? Too bad about the trash. I saw very little last time I was there.

[pianodirt]

Since it's the first time I've been there, I'm not sure how much water is usually in the falls. They were flowing pretty good. I did take some pics and will post them soon.

[Scrooge]

That's a good, year-round stream with a surprisingly consistent flow. Snowmelt in the spring is replaced with irrigation runoff in the fall.

[pianodirt]

Here's a few pics from the trip...

Ancient Lakes from Waterfall