Boulder Lake Trail in McCall

A short hike to a mountain lake? Count me in!

When I talked with people in town, everyone recommended the Boulder Lake trail. “It can get kinda busy on the weekends, but it should be good on a Wednesday. With that, I set out to Payette National Forest. I drove further up a dusty, rocky forest service road than expected, checking the map to ensure the lake was still ahead of me. Two pickup trucks were parked at the end of the road at the base of a steep embankment.

The Trailhead

This must be it. I walked into the woods to explore the quietly flowing creek before hiking up the levee. It quickly disappeared into a dense, dark forest. A calm lake framed by pine-spiked mountains appears before me. A carved wooden sign on a tree simply says “Trail” with an arrow. Distracted and pulled toward this body of water, I’d walked past the trailhead and its large information board thirty feet into the trees. Reoriented, I found the trail and learned that this was Boulder Creek reservoir.

The Reservoir Section

It took me almost an hour to go the first half mile. An osprey grabbed a fish from the lake while mergansers dove under the surface. I glassed the rocky slides across the water for marmots or bears. I stood on the trail as clouds of fireweed cotton cascaded around me. I felt the dispersal, free, floating, one with the breeze to destinations unknown.

False hellebore plants shoot tall spikes of flowers far above their leaves. The flower petals and seeds weigh down the stalks, hanging like Cleopatra’s jewels from the curved stem. I’ve marveled at this plant’s unfurling leaves in the spring, but I’ve never seen the flowers or seed pods! They are just as amazing!

This is part of why my pace is so slow. But life is a journey. The timeline today would ideally get me back to the car before dusk. Otherwise, I’ve got nothing but time.

Pearly everlasting is in bloom. The dogwoods are showing beautiful berry clusters. Red and white bane berries decorate the understory.

Solomon’s seal berries hang like lanterns from their arching stems. Western sunflower marks the trail’s edge with it’s subdued purple flowerhead without petals. In addition to all the wonder along my path, I keep ducking down side trails to marvel at the reservoir.

The Ascent

Once I pass the reservoir, the trail begins to make a gentle ascent. Where a seep crosses the trail, I pause and inhale deeply. There’s an intense smell reminiscent of celery. Some cow parsnip is growing here; it’s related to celery, but I’ve never noticed it emitting any odor before. I wonder if this is an animal scent that I don’t recognize, like the distinct musky smell of a fox. I linger. Looking, listening, scenting the air. I can’t place it, nor can I find any other clues. Onward.

The proliferation of fireweed stops me in my tracks. I love everything about this plant: beautiful magenta flowers on tall, spear-shaped stalks (they say that summer is over when the fireweed blooms to the top), each seed artfully attached to a whisp of cotton, and after the seeds fly, the stalks curl in graceful ribbons. My pace is slowed once again.

The air is clear today. Yesterday, the wind brought smoke from area wildfires. The air quality and visibility were poor, and it gave me a headache. Today will prove to be the last clear day for weeks.

The path gets steeper on switchbacks over rocks and roots. A quiet waterfall brings a creek across the trail, where I skip across the rocks.

The trail curves back up, and I skip over the same creek a bit higher. At this elevation, the understory is carpeted with huckleberry bushes whose leaves are turning yellow and then red, giving this part of the hike a decidedly fall feel.

Boulder Lake

I can see the top of the bare granite rising to my left while I hike through the Douglas Fir forest extending to my right. I knew I was hiking to a mountain lake. I didn’t know it’d be a mountaintop lake! I come up a rise and am eye-level with the lake. A small rocky levee holds back the lake on this side.

A narrow spillway lets a torrent of water run down the mountainside. Two solid twelve-inch wide planks cross ten feet over the rushing outflow. I cross the makeshift bridge to reach the sandy shores of Boulder Lake.

It’s September, and the lake level is low. The inflow of snowmelt and spring rains is long gone. Evaporative losses from the impossibly dry summer air drop the lake levels until the fall rains come.

I find a comfortable spot on a granite boulder to sit and take it all in. Across the calm lake, a round mountain is dressed in the hues of autumn. To my left, I scan the rugged granite peaks, looking for bighorn sheep. It’s not long before a hopeful golden-mantled ground squirrel cautiously approaches, peering over rocks strategically closing the distance. Ultimately, she’ll have tried her approach from three different sides.

None of these results will result in the handout she’s hoping for.  A yellow pine chipmunk peers over a distant boulder. It seems he sent a sentry. Seeing that the squirrel isn’t eating, he disappears without approaching further.

After I lingering and basking in the solitude under the warm afternoon sunshine, it was time to start back down the trail. I’m at about 7000 feet elevation lakeside. The trailhead is about two miles and 800 feet down. Then it’s another eight miles down 1000 feet back to town.

Over the course of three miles, this trail has it all – lakes, waterfalls, grand old trees, babbling brooks, creek crossings, fireweed, ferns, berries, berries, berries, a little bit of summer, a little bit of fall and solitude on a Wednesday afternoon. Five stars. Would Recommend.

If you’re interested in purchasing or licensing any images you see here, please email me at SNewenham at exploringnaturephotos.com, and I’ll make it happen.

Subscribe here to receive an email whenever a new blog posts.