[Backpacker Joe]

After talking with the Hulkster I was going to try meeting him at Blanca lake. After some reflection I figured that I should take things a little slower so I decided to head back into the Spada lake area and bag the two Greider lakes. I left my car at 15:00 and made the first Greider lake an hour later. One of the things I noticed was how much labor was put into this trail. Goodness, at nearly every steep switch back there were stair steps made with cedar wrapping around each step.... Some of them were very steep as well.

Lots of man hours on this stuff

Lots of man hours on this stuff

When I got to the lower lake I found this steel bridge at the outlet. Who carried that up there? Mr. helicopter?

Lower Greider outlet bridge

Steel bridge at lower Greider

The lower lake was the nicer of the two I thought.

Lower Greider

Lower Greider

The trail to the upper lake is a half mile and mostly level. Once there you drop into the lake.

Upper Greider

Upper Greider

Upper Greider outlet

Greider lake Bozo

At each lake I found what looked seriously like rafts.... Or tent platforms.... Im not sure which. No other camps sites had them, that;s why I thought rafts....

Tent platform at Upper Greider???

Tent platform at lower Greider???

On the way out the sun in the trees was very nice....

Sunlight in the trees

Sunlight in the trees

Sunlight in the trees

It was a very nice day hike overall. I was hoping for better light while there, but the haze was turbo bummin... It was worth a try.

[Yana]

Thanks for the TR! Those are some weird structures you found. I dragged my parents up there a few years ago. Only made it to Lower Greider before the heat and the bugs chased us off, though.

[Backpacker Joe]

Unless this work was done during the depression, those lakes were some serious money drain for some agency....... All the trail work. That steel bridge. Those tent platforms/rafts smelled of creosote big time... I hope they never made it into the lakes.....

[captain jack]

There is one campsite at Boulder with a platform like that too. Its kind of up and over the top of the hill, then down to the left. It's in an area that could be kind of marshy, thats why I thought they put it there.

[Bryan K]

[Backpacker Joe]

It was empty......

[Kat]

Don't tell me you didn't bring a raft and rod!

[Scrooge]

[Tom]

[Backpacker Joe]

I didnt see anything like that Tom. I did see the toilet signs at each lake, but since I didnt need them I didnt me-an-der over to them to see them.

[Tom]

You couldn't have missed it. It was in every shot I took of the lower lake. Note the location. Was that the location of the platform?

1 label

[Backpacker Joe]

Tom, here is the best pic I have of what looks to me to be the same area you're photo shows the porta potty. It looks in your photo like the PP is sitting on that platform. What I noticed is that almost directly across from that camp site was a relatively new toilet sign screwed into a tree pointing away from that camp site. Maybe they were using PP's until they made the toilets? Must have helicopter'd them in and out.

Lower Greider

[Scrooge]

Same spot. See the white tree trunks? They don't show up as well in Tom's pic, but they're there.

[Hulksmash]

WOW! I have to admit it's been a few years since i last visited Grider lake's. The last time i was there it was only primitive camp sites, and chem toilet hauled in and out by helicopter. It angers me even more that much time and effort in to "improvements" just to abandon later. It makes no sense

[Scrooge]

Look at this damned bridge!

The epitome of DNR's recreational hiking philosophy. Never mind the steel girder support, for a bridge that crosses a stream that's eight feet wide, carrying a trail that goes nowhere but Upper Greider Lake. Look at those handrail supports! What were they thinking? Contrast that with the "bridges" that carry thousands of people across the West Fork Foss on the Forest Service's Foss Lakes Trail.

Log bridge to gravel bar in West Fork Foss River

Log bridge over West Fork Foss River

Rich Baldwin photos If we can, while DNR is in this Sustainable Recreation mode, we need to try to convince them that they can do a better job of serving us with their limited dollars by not making individual projects so ambitious.