For todays winter hike, I headed southwest of Spokane to the BLM’s Fishtrap Lake Recreation Area. A hour drive brought me to the trailhead for this hike. I had hiked the north loop a couple of years ago and there is some overlap.
The trail starts out going through what looks like an endless expanse of semi-desert steppe. You can measure the sight line in miles, not feet. Beneath the thin grasses the ground is pretty much basalt rocks. Not much else can grow out here.
After a mile I was able to turn around and see my car in the distance. I imagine some folks give up on this hike after half an hour due to lack of scenery.
On the way to the lake I passed several small iced over ponds. When I hiked this site in the spring of 2022 there was a lot of swampy ground and it was hard to keep my feet dry.
After half an hour you start passing by walls of basalt.
The trail descends through an area of scattered pines and rock outcroppings as you get closer to the lake.
When I made it to the shore near the southwest end of the lake, I wasn’t all that surprised to find it covered in a thick layer of ice. A lot of the ice was black (clear) ice that forms when it’s calm and the lake freezes in a hurry. It is the safest ice to walk on.
Next I followed the western shore to the northeast. I thought this basalt monolith looked a lot like a pill box.
I came across this kolk crater. I had to look up what that is and found out these features are the holes left over from vortex’s caused by gigantic flood events. Apparently they are found throughout the Channeled Scablands.
After detouring around the crater I was back to following the shoreline on rocky bluffs about thirty feet above the ice. Fishtrap Lake is about two miles long but only about one to two hundred feet wide and less than thirty feet deep.
At a gully the trail descended down to lake level and I enjoyed the view to the far shore. I got a good look at the ice and it looked to be over four inches thick. The entire basin reverberated with the distinctive sound of the ice cracking under the immense pressure.
Where the trail deviated inland, it passed beneath another wall of basalt through pines and dense stands of aspen trees. It looked like a wildfire had burned through the area a few years ago. There were a lot of surviving pines which means it wasn’t as hot as some others in the area.
Here I stopped to enjoy the view as it was time to call it good. The lake goes another half mile before it ends at a small resort and is fed from a creek that connects to Hog Lake.
On the way back, I took this photo of a very pretty headland. You can see the shadows are starting to lengthen. This looks like a fun lake to kayak as well.
After finishing a four hour hike, I made a quick detour to the Folsom Farm interpretive site.
On my previous trip to the Fishtrap Lake Recreation Area, I hiked out to the waterfall on the northeast end of Hog Lake. There are lots of places to explore out here. FYI, if you want to see a waterfall don’t wait for summer, the creek will be dry by then.
Fishtrap Lake is just off Interstate 90 about 30 miles west of Spokane. The 9000 acre site has miles of trails, two boat ramps on two lakes, a waterfall and several trailheads. I’ve read mixed reviews on the hiking here, but I highly recommend it, especially for winter and cool early season hiking.
