Weekend at Three Creeks Lake

I was fortunate enough to head out with the family to Three Creeks Lake for the weekend.  It was a pretty amazing place, but we quickly learned that the roads were not very minivan friendly.  We tow our tent trailer with our Toyota Sienna, a car not known for its ground clearance.  Thankfully, the hitch was not torn off, and the trip was well worth the hour it took to inch our way past the road of rocky tribulation.   The picture included was taken from a cliff that stood almost 1000 feet above our campsite.  Chloe and I resolved to head up to the Tam MacArthur Ridgeline that stood prominently above the lake, but what was originally supposed to take an hour or two turned into an all day affair when we decided to be adventurous/stupid and follow the ridgeline to its end.  

Advice for the future:  1 qt. of water/6 hours = not good.

We made it back alive though...the view was stunning, and the terrain was hospitable enough that we could blaze our own trails.  

A good view of both lakes...the far one is Three Creeks, and the near one is Little Three Creeks.  We ended up heading back to camp via an old creek bed near the base of the slope.  

Little Three Creeks Lake was pretty awesome.  It was only accessible by hiking trails, so it was pretty untouched as far as human traffic goes.  

There were frogs all over the place....I'm not sure what the cause was, but the grass near the water was teeming with little black frogs.  Dad and Ellie caught at least 100 of them and penned them up along the shore, only to break down one side of the frog fort and watch them all take off at once.   As fun as the trip was, the level of enjoyment was offset a bit by one of cats...as soon as the tent trailer was set up, Dad and I went inside to set up the table, only to find our cat Mostly underneath.  Having him along was a bit like taking a baby camping...he would wake us up at odd hours of the night by meowing at the trailer door, and the only way to appease him would be to take him out hunting for an hour or so.  It added an interesting dynamic to the whole vacation, one that none of us would care to repeat.