15 min
Overview
Note: As of 2017, a sign has been posted at the Olallie Lake end of the Long Lake Trail stating that only tribal members and authorized personnel can use the trail and access Long and Dark Lakes. Please respect this sign. Those lakes are now out of bounds until further notice. You can do this hike as an in and out beginning along the east shore of Olallie Lake - from the day-use area, it's 1.4 miles to the Olallie Lake-Long Lake Trail Junction. You can also incorporate it into the Olallie and Monon Lakes Loop Hike. In any case, you will probably begin at the Olallie Lake Trailhead. The two lakes you will be visiting are on the Warm Springs Reservation and offer more solitude than the larger lakes. To fish in these lakes, however, you will need a Warm Springs fishing permit. From the unsigned Olallie Lake-Long Lake Trail Junction, go left. Pass an almost dry pond and then head down on a fairly rugged but logged-out trail to the shore of Long Lake. Among the scorched snags, huckleberry bushes glow a fiery red in the early fall. A sign T-12 on a tree designates this a Warm Springs trail. Walk along the north shore of Long Lake. Wildflowers bloom along the shores and butterflies flit in abundance on a sunny day. At the end of Long Lake, there’s a fire circle and a scratched direction on a stone saying go right for Dark Lake. Head along the shore of Long Lake and cross its dry but rocky outlet channel. Then a narrow trail heads up the slope to a rim and you can see Dark Lake down below. It sits below a couple hundred feet of rimrock, but fire has charred the forest all around it. You can head right, scrambling among downed snags along the rim, and sometimes locating an old viewpoint tread. From this vantage point, you can see shallow Island Lake beyond Dark Lake. Keep on the main trail to head down steeply to Dark Lake. There is a dead-end trail along part of the west shore and the main trail leads along the north shore of Dark Lake to Island Lake and then the campground area at Trout Lake. There is supposed to
Trail Stats
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76 m
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Photos
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