Frying Pan Lake Loop hike

Frying Pan Lake Loop

Trail head selfie

In their guide 100 hikes in the Washington's South Cascades and Olympics, Manning and Spring accurately described this trip in the William O. Douglas Wilderness Area with at least two flaws:  too many bugs & parts of the trails almost destroyed by horse usage.

I recommend this trip for September instead, after a good freeze, when most of the bugs will be dead, dead, dead, if you go at all.  Trail switchbacks are moderately graded with few steep rises and you really can't "fall off" the trail anywhere;  Once you've reached Penoyer Lake or Jug Lake the trail rolls along mildly with many level sections. The whole loop is less than 15 miles, which is great as a day hike or as an intro to overnight camping for newbies.   I spent two nights out because I didn't need to go home.

The bugs gave me hell shortly after I set out at ~5:30 p.m. Saturday August 2.  With a 22 lb pack and going uphill, I couldn't walk fast enough to keep them from attacking.  They knew my blood tasted better than that of anyone else's on the trail.  Pieces of swatted, dead bugs mixed with sweat, dust and insect repellent made for a dirty job.  If you plan to camp at Penoyer Lake (a big pond, really, and bugged), you'll want to fill your water bottles by the fifth creek up from the trailhead, as you may dislike the brackish water at Penoyer, where you'll wet your shoes or feet getting to water deep enough to dip your bottle.  I arrived early enough at Penoyer to set up camp and my bear bagging line (PCT method) and also cook dinner.  I hadn't enough decent water for breakfast, which I deferred until I arrived at Snow Lake.  Snow Lake's camp site was much more open than Penoyer, if you can get to the trailhead early enough (maybe 3-4 hours)--as for bugs, a couple camped there wore head nets.  Frying Pan Lake had an inch of organic matter covering fist sized rocks which made for difficult barefoot walking, 4" swimming worms (leeches?) and lots of organic matter in the water whether filled from the surface or below the surface.

Frying Pan Lake.  Nice puffy clouds!

Jug Lake had much better water quality.  At Jug Lake the fish worked hard to reduce the bug population, but many bugs survived both morning and evening feeds--during bug season, one would want to go for the fishing.    No bears, no deer appeared during my visit.  I hung my food 10' up & 6' out, so can't comment on rodents.

At Jug Lake, the penny stove 2.0 didn't prime--I blew out the puny flame, poured more alcohol near the base of the stove, re-lit and it behaved.  Not expensive or heavy like an MSR liquid stove, but not as foolproof as a cat stove.

Food up!

I washed my hair with the soap I had, diluted dish detergent, which is just wrong.  I couldn't fall asleep the 2nd night--I wasn't tired enough or I just couldn't find the sweet spot in the hammock for getting to sleep.  I felt like I was awake all the time, sitting up or lying down from 9 p.m. to 3:30 a.m., pinching or scratching some bug bites or scratching my head.  Finally, I found the sweet spot and slept soundly until ~7:30.

Mosquito Bites
1. left arm/hand 21 bites
2. Right arm/hand 17
3. Head/neck  7
4. Shoulders and back 40 bites right through my shirt
5. legs 6
I resolved to make a soup of permethrin to soak my clothes to keep the girls away.  Note to self on bug repellent:  take liquid repellent.  The solid stick, while great for coating my hair and head, can't cover like liquid.

Food:  I took 3 lb and had 1.5 lb after the trip.  Walking without snacking likely arose from my subconscious keeping me moving to thwart bugs.  Rethinking food:  increase the size of the morning and evening meals.