December 8, 2015 - Fawn Lake and Lake Julia - DuPont State Forest

Today's hike began at the Fawn Lake access of DuPont State Forest.  There are several combinations of trails that can be done from this parking area and Cindy had one picked out that would include views of 2 of the lakes in the area.  This hike was about 4.5 miles in length and very easy.  From the parking area, you have a choice of either beginning a hike on the Reasonover Creek Trail or Fawn Lake Rd.  We began on the latter.

Fawn Lake Rd is one of the gravel service roads in DuPont.  It's about a mile long, passes Fawn Lake and the high voltage power lines than run through the forest, then connects with Conservation Rd.  We followed it for about 0.4 miles through some open woods, then turned left on to Fawn Lake Loop before getting to Fawn Lake.  This loop circles the lake for 0.6 miles, but far enough away from the lake so you only have glimpses of it through the trees.  This looks like a place that would have some nice spring wildflowers, so we'll probably head back there in early April to see. Here's a shot from the trail looking up towards Mine Mountain.

To see the lake close up, we would have turned back towards the parking area on Fawn Lake Rd, but we saved that for the return hike later in the day.  Instead, we headed towards Conservation Rd and turned left once we reached it.  In a short distance, this comes out to an old airstrip and a forest service building.  We stayed on Conservation Rd. with the intent of turning on to Lake Julia Rd.  When we got to that intersection, a huge group of hikers was coming from the other way and turned on to Lake Julia Rd before we got to it.  Time for a change of plans.  Instead, we kept on Conservation Rd to the left turn on Bridal Veil Falls Rd so we would have that part of Conservation Rd on the GPS.  I still plan to go back to Bridal Veil Falls, but want to wait until water levels are lower.

We hoped that large group of hikers didn't stop at Lake Julia, but when we came back that way they were at the picnic tables eating lunch.  Lake Julia Rd is only 0.4 miles long and it passes the forest service office right before getting to the lake.  Where the road ends, the Lake View Loop trail picks up, so we took it to give those folks time to move along.  This loop trail is only about 1/4 mile long and loops around a vacant house before coming around to a boat house on the lake.  There weren't any signs saying we couldn't go down to the boathouse, so we did.  It's being used by the forest service to store a couple of canoes and a john boat.  It's a nice spot, so we hung around a bit waiting for the group to depart.
 

Lake Julia from the boathouse

looking towards the vacant house from the boathouse

The group finally departed via the Reasonover Creek Trail, so we headed over to the picnic area for another view of Lake Julia.

Lake Julia from the picnic area

From here, we took Camp Summit Rd for about a half a mile back to Conservation Rd, then headed back towards Fawn Lake.  This time we stayed on Fawn Lake Rd and stopped at the lake.  This is probably a very popular swimming area in the summer and I plan to avoid it like the plague during that time.  That tree in the foreground in the picture below is a dogwood and I'd love to get a shot here in the spring with it in bloom.

Fawn Lake