Gold Lake from Lake Dorothy

[Anonymous]

Last May I was talking to a fisherman near Lake Dorothy; he told me there was a fisherman trail to Gold Lake from the inlet end of Lake Dorothy.
Yesterday I located the trail and followed it until I lost it completely after about 3/4 mile. The trail appeared to head towards the creek before I lost it.
The trail is very evident in the beginning, and is tagged, but quickly gets overgrown and tagless.
Has anyone been on this “trail” to Gold Lake? I am trying to climb Big Snow by this route.
Any help would be really appreciated.

[Brian Curtis]

I’ve hiked on a bit of it closer to Gold, but I haven’t been all they way between Dorothy and Gold. That’s a brushy valley, there’s no way to get up there without having to fight some brush. My suggestion would be to follow the way trail as far as you can and then follow the logical route up to the lake. Typically, you’ll pick up the route again in a short distance.

And be sure to pull the damn litter some people insist on leaving off the trees.

[Dave Harwell]

It’s a slow slog up to Gold lake. All sorts of terrain is up there. Boulders, brush, creek as trail. The tread is thin and it seems to take forever to get anywhere.

The way trail is better once you get into the upper section of the valley. I can say from experience that it is worth it to take time to find the trail. I missed a crucial part coming up and lost the trail coming down in the middle section. I still got there though. There’s lots of flags at least 1/3 of the way. We were trying to hit the Dorothy trail before dark and barely made it. Otherwise I would have pulled those flags.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for responces.
Odonata, did you stay on the LEFT side of the creek until you turned to follow the creek up to Gold Lake?

[Dave Harwell]

I know most of the time it is on the left (East) side. I believe it crosses in the neighborhood of the Moira confluence. Near the Gold Creek outlet it is on the left side. I am really sketchy on details from 3400′ to 3800′. A few days ago we came off the East ridge and landed near the Fools Gold confluence. We gave up looking for the trail and walked the creek for a 1/2-mile to where it became obvious on our right.

Just to show you my intelligence, I submit last years route into Gold on a rainy 4th of July weekend.

[allison]

I’ve been all the way up the route Odonata describes. If I had it all to do again, I might go in via Hardscrabbles, doable as a day hike. I was on the outfall of Gold on the right all the way up (I think, can’t remember) and an ultra faint path materializes not too far from the lake.

It’s damn hard work up from Dorothy. If you go that way, it might help to take notes or pictures because there are some terrain items that do not show up on the map.

PS. Whoops, just read the first post again, and I actually went up from the inlet of Dot, at the far end, as described by Beckey.

[Brian Curtis]

I went in to Gold via Dingford Creek. Up to Myrtle Lake and straight up to Foolsgold then across to Gold. The trip would certainly be easier from either Dotty or the Hardscrabbles but I thought I’d throw that into the mix.

[Author]

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