Red Buttes to Lilly Pad Lake 9-4-24

Photos by Francie

Ashland Hiking Home

We had 8 people turn out to hike. The original plan was to hike to Marguerette and Trapper Lakes in the Sky Lakes Wilderness. Barry brought to my attention that the air quality was bad due to the Copperfield Fire east of Chiloquin so he was going to sit out. Scott said he would wrangle the Ashland hikers. I checked the air quality map then told Barry that hikes to the west had good air quality. I asked him to tell the group to meet me at the Jacksonville Library to discuss going out towards the Applegate. When the Ashland hikers arrived I gave the choices of Applegate Lake or the Red Buttes. We chose the Red Buttes.

After arriving around 10 AM, I decided we should only go to Lily Pad Lake because the temperature was already 77°.  As we were all getting our packs ready, Bob talked to some guys who were with a water tender truck. They were there in case there was a fire in the area. They told him there was an area down the road with a waterfall where they had good access to fill up if needed. When I went home, I looked on a map and saw that there are 2 waterfalls listed on a map that are fairly close to the road. Ponytail Falls and Horsetail Falls. Ponytail looks like the most logical one they would use.

We started up the trail going on the PCT. There were some fireweed wildflowers that were at least as tall as me. They were in the seed head stage and the silky hairs were showing. Since it was so warm, I had the group stop before we got to one mile in case anyone needed a wardrobe adjustment. We could look down and see where we had parked the cars.

We continued on and because of a fire some years back, we could see the road that goes farther south. We could also see the Red Buttes sooner because of the fire. At around 2 miles, Liz decided it was too hot to continue but assured us that she would be fine to sit in the shade and no one needed to wait with her. She had a walkie talkie and we said we would keep in contact with her. At 2.5 miles we were at the Echo Lake overlook and there was a strong wind. Barry decided that would be his stopping point and invited Liz to join him, but she was good to stay where she was.

The rest of us continued another 1.5 miles to Lily Pad Lake and went up to the green gate. We took a quick group picture and Nanci, Marilyn and Mark went back down to the Shade. Scott, Bob and I stayed by the gate and ate our lunch because there was a good breeze. We could see quite a bit of smoke surrounding the lower part of Mount Shasta. We had a fast lunch and decided to head back due to the heat.

As were we getting ready to head down, Liz said she was going to slowly walk back to the trailhead. Barry said he was going to make his way towards Liz. We kept in radio contact as we went back and took a few breaks in the shade. We arrived back at the trailhead around 2:30 PM and had hiked 8.12 miles and gained almost 1,600 feet. It was 85° and we were happy to be done with the hike and in air conditioned cars.

Francie