Wednesday, September 11, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
21
Rough road to No Name Lake
By Craig Eisenbeis
Correspondent
I always thought No
Name Lake was not very well
known. In fact, it didn9t even
come to my attention until
about 12 years ago, when
I spotted it from the slopes
of Broken Hand. I noticed a
picturesque little lake at the
snout of a small glacier on
the east side of Broken Top. I
decided that it merited a visit
and resolved to investigate.
As it turned out, the trail to
the lake is a pretty easy hike;
but getting to the trailhead is
another issue altogether. The
trail can be accessed from
either the north or south on
the 370 road, which runs
from the vicinity of Three
Creek Lake all the way to
Century Drive.
Although the lake itself
is not in the Sisters Ranger
District, we started from
the Three Creek end, which
is. Sisters District Ranger,
Ian Reid, said <That is a
maintenance-level 2 road
for high-clearance vehicles
only.= At about the six-mile
point, a roadside sign belat-
edly announced, <Not main-
tained for passenger cars.=
No kidding.
After another 5.5 miles of
punishing 4x4-only road and
turning onto the 380 road,
we arrived at the Broken
Top Trailhead and discov-
ered a nice, and surprisingly
crowded, parking lot. We
learned that all the other cars
had come in from Century
Drive, and I began to wonder
if the 50-mile route through
Bend might have been a bet-
ter choice. I was told, how-
ever, that the road in from the
south was <really awful,= too.
The Broken Top Trailhead
is an alternate route to enter
the Green Lakes Basin from
the east. The trail takes off
over the open alpine coun-
try, with spectacular views of
Broken Top and the surround-
ing countryside. The trail is
well worn and easy to follow.
It9s only a couple of miles;
and, as the trail approaches
the lake, there is more than
one track. Generally, it is
better to stick to the higher
ground to avoid damaging
fragile habitat that is only
exposed to the sun for a few
short weeks in the summer.
Therein lies another
problem with the current
hiker assault on the area.
According to Jean Nelson-
Dean, public affairs officer
for the Deschutes National
Forest, a sensitive plant spe-
cies grows in the area.
<Newberry knotweed is
a perennial plant that only
grows at higher elevations,
and we9re seeing some dam-
age to the plants,= she said.
Despite the suspicious
sound of its name, Nelson-
Dean says it9s a <good= plant
and an important feature of
this high mountain habi-
tat. It is a low-growing herb
with oval, pointy leaves that
are yellowish, pale green. Its
small flowers can be yellow,
green or purple tinted. Stems
have a reddish appearance.
The lake itself is not vis-
ible from any point along the
trail; so, it is necessary to fol-
low the gash in the moraine
up a rocky path to reach the
lake. The eye-popping view
from the lake9s outlet up to
Broken Top is totally unex-
pected and is reminiscent of
the view from Moraine Lake
in Canada9s Banff National
Park. Yes, there are fewer
peaks here and the scale is
smaller, but you9re also a lot
closer. This is a top-notch
Oregon viewpoint, right here
in our own backyard.
The fragment of Bend
Glacier terminates right in the
glacial silt-colored lake, and
ice breaks off into the water,
creating a continually chang-
ing variety of floes. Typically,
fresh glacier ice can be seen
floating on the lake through-
out the summer, which it
will continue to do until the
lake freezes up again in a
few weeks. A trail around the
east side of the lake ascends a
ridge to the north.
Once atop the 8,300 foot-
high ridge above the lake,
views unfold endlessly. With
Park Meadow and the east-
ern headwaters of Whychus
Creek far below in the near
foreground, Cascade views
stretch out for hundreds of
miles. We took a slightly dif-
ferent route back by skirt-
ing the outer edge of the
moraine rather than retracing
our route through the lake9s
outlet. Round trip, including
the ridgetop, this hike is only
about six miles.
The Forest Service, how-
ever, has plans to make
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ACCESS!
access to the area a little
more difficult by closing
the 380 road and moving
the trailhead back to the
370 road. This would add
about three miles to this
round-trip hike. Nelson-
Dean said, however, that
PHOTO BY CRAIG EISENBEIS
a timetable for this change
has not been established.
This road warning sign on the way to No Name Lake should be taken seriously.