Louie Lake - Who needs a trail?

Yesterday we decided to go on another hiking adventure, this time to Louie Lake. We parked at the very end of the parking lot and took what seemed to be a trail. After about 5 minutes of walking, the trail ended and we were in an area like this:

Now I suggested that we walk back down and find the trailhead but my two Eagle Scouts were convinced that we were going in the right direction and would soon come upon the trail. They had George's car GPS so it didn't have trails included on its maps but it did show N, S, E, or W.

Every now and then we would come to a 'sort of trail' like this

But then it would end and we would be back to cross country climbing over logs and working our way through brush. I wished for a machete a few times....to cut the brush not to use on anyone!!!!

We needed more ever so helpful trail markings like this one! This one was on the way down when the road and trail were actually pretty obvious!

We did finally find the lake and it was beautiful & pristine until the sound of 4 wheelers and motorcycles & the smell of gasoline overwhelmed us. It seems that not only was there a trail to Louie Lake...there was a road.

We took the road down most of the way and continued on the Louie Lake trail. I even made it across the stream on a log, although I thought about swimming, well actually wading, across with the dog!

So despite the scratches on my legs and the dog's total exhaustion (it is pretty hard to get through brush that is as tall as you are, especially when you are a geriatric dog) it was a fun day. I was reminded of this quote by G. K. Chesterton "An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." I consider our day an adventure!