Tangle Blue Lake

Tangle Blue is a childhood favorite of mine. I use to day hike this lake with my family to go fishing at this beautiful alpine lake. The drive up is nasty! You don't need a 4x4 but the sharp rocks could leave you in a bad place if you don't have a full size spare. Once you start your hike, you will cross a bridge and walk a few hundred feet up the dirt road and take the first right up another dirt road. You will walk along the creek past resent logging activity for a mile or so before you make it to the wilderness boundary. From here you will pass through several small meadows with lots of Corn Lilies and other mountain wild flowers. As you come to the largest and most impressive of these meadows pay attention for the turn of to Tangle Blue Lake. If you stay on the old logging road you'll be going a lot farther up a very steep hill to Big Marshy Lake. If you catch the turn you'll walk through this meadow and cross the creek near an old cabin sight.
The lake is now only a few hundred yards away up a steep muddy hill.
All the good campsites are crowded together on the south side of the lake offering little privacy. The best fishing seems to be on the North side of the lake near the main inlet.

Getting ready to toss a fly out in the early morning.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

how do you get to the trail head?

James Mitchell said...

Tangle Blue can be a bit tricky to find. Locals tend to take down the sign off of HWY 3. As you start your climb over Scots Mt heading north on HWY 3 you take the first main dirt road to your left about 2 or 3 miles into the climb. There is still a little fs arrow along with a HWY arrow pointing at each other. After this follow the main road to the trail head. If they are currently logging up there this could be difficult. And you'll need to know how to use your map.

Also once on the trail (road) you'll cross a bridge. Take the first right about 100 yards up the trail (road). This junction is seldom marked.