Winter Breathes its Last at Pine Lake

As many of you know, Pine Lake is one of my family's favorite hiking destinations.  There is always a new adventure to unfold, and each season brings a different flavor of beauty.  We finally had a warm day on Tuesday and decided to take our first hike of the year around the upper lake.  

The first sight to meet our eyes was a flooded-out bridge (above), so we took a detour up a steep snow-covered hill and climbed up to the Christians summer camp where we crossed on their much higher bridge.

We did our best to avoid some very muddy spots on the trail.  Anyone interested in a cabin with a lakeside view?

Uhmm...no, that's the road.

We climbed down another very steep snow-covered hill back to our trail.  It's a bit tricky to climb down a hill like this while taking pictures and still not slip, so I finally put the camera away, and my dear papa and brother (wonderful gentlemen) gave me a hand over the steepest parts down to the trail.

We passed a few real lake-side houses.  This beauty (below) was for sale, if any of my readers would like to buy it we can stop by for hot cocoa and a visit every time we hike here...

Unfortunately, it appears that the lake has a big fish kill this year because of the heavy snow and ice cover which denied sunlight to the lake and seriously depleted the oxygen supply.

What you see in the water above is a mass of dead fish.  Some were rather large--why can't we ever catch any big ones when we go fishing here?  What a sad sight!  There were some living fish that we saw swimming among the dead--hopefully they last until summer!  Winter can be very cruel.

We continued on our hike...

Until we saw a dismaying sight!  

The trail was flooded once again, so we took another detour across a swiftly flowing little stream.  Most of the party jumped across, but Mama and I opted to walk over the log below.

Soon we had to cross another creek, this time over more substantial logs placed there by the park for hikers.

We reached the concrete part of the trail and as the sun set we made our way back to the van and left for supper (a snack) and a peaceful evening at home.  Isn't God's creation beautiful?