Cripple Creek and Serene Lake Loop, Nov 6th

With all the crazy weather around here, I started looking for something further south to go explore and found this very nice loop in the Roaring River Wilderness. This hike combines several trails to form a double loop that climbs up via Cripple Creek, then goes around Serene Lake and the trails to the Rock Lakes and then comes back down on a different trail to the starting point. What all that means is that this trail offers a wide variety of scenery and features. The drive there was kind of tricky as this trail is not at the end of a road with a well marked parking spot, in fact, as we were driving we spotted a trail sign between the trees which made us stop, get out of the car and go check it out. So after getting ready for our 11 mile journey, we started meandering thru the forest and passing by a couple of open meadows with shallow lakes. A bit after that, we came to the much bigger Cripple Creek Lake which gave us the first fall color display of the hike. After circling one side of this lake, we continued up to a bigger meadow where a second faint trail joined our trail and then seemed to disappear. The meadow was an interesting sight with lone trees and islands of shrubs on a yellow grass field. From the guide, I knew we had to just continue straight, thru the bushes to find a campsite which is on the Serene Loop Trail. Not only we found the campsite but also the tree eating the trail sign!

Hungry tree


At that point, we had the option to go clockwise or counter clockwise. We opted for the clockwise as that would give us better views along the way. We hiked up thru a dense forest for a while until we reached a clearing and a fork. There was no indication of which way we needed to go so we kept straight as that went out into the clear. That was not the trail, but it was the viewpoint that offers the best view of Serene Lake down bellow. Even with a cloudy weather, the view was fantastic. We then traced back to the fork and took the other route which started descending on the back side of the ridge towards the North end of Serene Lake. Once there, we explored a couple of campsites and then continued North to the end of the lake where a small creek comes off. Then we started climbing again on the other ridge and passed thru several almost flooded areas and small pools that eventually took us to a four way fork where you can veer off to any of the Rock Lakes. We decided there to go check at least one of these so we headed off trail towards Middle Rock Lake which, in my opinion, was a lot more scenic than Serene. Once there, we took a break and explored around for a while before heading back to the main trail.

View of Middle Rock Lake and the pyramidal rock


The trail then continues up until it ends at the other entry point for this loop at Frazier Camp. That spot was a bit disappointing not only for the rutted trails and roads but also because the next couple of miles were on an old service road. At some point the road becomes a trail again and we you least expect it, you start getting a familiar scenery as you approach the Cache Meadow on that faint trail we saw on the way up. We did some fooling around in the area (that you can see in the rest of the pictures) and then continued down on a different uneventful trail back to the car.



You can check the pictures here