Warm Lake

We drove up Warm Lake road which is just north of Cascade and runs east up into the mountains.  Its a beautiful drive up into the mountains with lots of snow still along the sides of the road.  As you drive up there you can stop along the way and enjoy a natural hot spring.  There was a path through the snow to get to it -- we didn't try it.  I'm not sure why the lake is called Warm Lake -- it is not warm.  One part of the lake has a nice gravely bed where salmon like to spawn and you can watch when its happening -- not sure when it takes place but we hope to get a look.   There is also a lodge with cabins and a restaurant that is open year round. 

We took a little forest service side road and were surprised when we couldn't get far.  The road was blocked and said it was closed so we thought we would park and hike.  We soon found out why the road was closed.  It had been washed out.  The road runs alongside a mountain and there must have been some kind of slide that wiped a portion of it out.  We walked around it and continued on but didn't get much farther before we hit another slide area with the road ripped out.  There was a third one we could see a little beyond the second one.  The sign said that these slides had happened just back in March.  We wondered if they were going to try and rebuild the road or not.  There are lots more forest service roads to explore so we will have a busy summer checking them out.