We had 8 hikers come out to do a shuttle hike on the Rye Spur trail from Highway 140 to Fourmile Lake. It was a new hike for everyone except Sherry and me. We Looked at the trailhead sign and it indicated that Fourmile lake was miles away. After going ¼ of a mile, we came to the Billie Creek Trail and another sign indicated that Fourmile lake was still 6 miles away.

We continued on the gradually climbing trail through a shady mix of conifer forest. This is primarily a mountain bike trail, but we only encountered 2 riders. They were very polite and walked their bikes past us. As we got to the lunch spot, the bikers had also stopped there. They jokingly told us hot chocolate would be ready in 20 minutes. In conversation with one of my clients on Friday, I discovered one of those guys was her husband. The lunch spot is a rock formation with fabulous views towards Klamath Lake. Beyond that, we could see that there was some smoke in the air. We could see a long straight stretch of Highway 140 and the Great Meadow. We tried to name the peaks and could tell that the top of Aspen Butte that we had hiked last week, was not in view. I knew Pelican Butte immediately because I could see the lookout tower. I zoomed my camera in and took a lower quality photo of it. We could see Mount Scott, but much of the Crater Lake rim was hidden behind closer mountains, one of which I believe was Lost Peak. Since it was a short hike, we had a longer lunch giving everyone time to relax. Bob even found a rock that was perfect to lounge back on and close his eyes.

We continued along the trail and most of the uphill was behind us. We could see that some of the bushes were already changing to red fall colors. At about 5 miles into the hike, we came to another trail intersection and it said 1.5 miles to Fourmile Lake. That was probably the only correct mileage on the signs. As we got closer to the lake we discovered just a couple of huckleberries. We also had some dwarf grouseberries which are in the huckleberry family.

We came out of the forest and arrived at Fourmile Lake and had just a little bit farther to get to the shuttle car. There was an east side view of Mount McLoughlin and it looked like all the snow that had fallen the week before was already melted. I never saw any clouds in the sky all day.

We had hiked 6.62 miles and had an elevation gain of 1,291 feet. The temperature was 74 degrees and much cooler than when we got back into town.