YouTube Video around Rock Creek Lake
Here is the report of the hiking, first of all, first of
all, I am writing about Rock Creek Lake.
Camp site selection
This time we camped at Rock Creek Lake Camp Ground instead
of French Camp where we stayed last time.
Since there could be more chance to meet shower and lightning in the
afternoon, it is probably better to start hiking earlier. Therefore, my plan was to get there a day
before and camping. It is much easier to
get to the trail head earlier if we stay there in the previous night. The reason I picked French Camp last time was
on-line reservation. It was really last
minutes and that was only camp site I could reserve on-line. It was okay just for a night. But it was hot in day time due to lower
elevation. It was over 90 degrees C in
daytime. We also found camp sites at
Rock Creek Lake when we spent some time in the first day last time. The camp site was much better than French
Camp. That was why we tried Rock Creek Lake
Camp Ground this time.
The problem for the site was that I could not reserve the
site at Rock Creek Lake Camp Ground on-line.
The reservation site said “First Come First Served”. The other sites near the Lake, named East
Fork Camp Ground had only one site which could be reserved on-line and the rest
of sites were the same as Rock Creek Lake Camp Ground. Only sites I could reserve were French
Camp. So, there would be some risk we might
not get a camp site if we did not reserved in advance. Our arrival date was Saturday and time we
could be there is some time late in the morning. We did not know how many people stayed there
before Friday night. Even though, we
prefer to stay at Rock Creek Lake Camp Ground based on our experience last
time. We decided to take a risk.
First Come First Served, what was the result?
We left our home at 6am and were arrived at Rock Creek Lake
around 11am on Saturday. We drove around
to see if there were any empty sites or not.
However, it was not very clear which sites were not occupied. When I was looking for empty sites, I found
camp site managers. When I checked them
if there is any sites available, they told me there could be two sites. However, the previous group might not have
left. So we needed to wait for their
check-out. Then, we could start setting
up and pay the fee. Unfortunately, one
of sites they mentioned, the party did not have plan to leave. So far, only one site was available for our
group. We have two families and we
wanted to get two sites. But we had to
share one site with two family this time.
A good thing was the site was large enough for two families. It seems that there were many groups who
stayed there before Friday nights. Many
groups stay there for more than a few days.
So it is probably better to have a backup plan when people try to get
sites at Rock Creek Lake Camp Ground.
Around Rock Creek Lake
The sites are nice, many sites are next to the lake and a
creek. Some of them were playing at the
lake, some of them were fishing. Many
people caught good size of rainbow trout.
Many sites were not really next to a car. We had to park at a parking lots, a sites
allow to park up to two cars and any additional cars will be additional
charge. Therefore, we had to carry all
stuff for camping from a car to the site.
It is about a few minutes. So it
would be better to pack camping stuff well, then it could be easy to carry
them. Each site has a table, a food
locker and a fire pit.
According to people who stay before Saturday, it was raining
in previous a few days and many group left on Saturday morning. They might plan to stay there longer. So I realized we were really lucky to get a
site over there.
It was comfortable weather in daytime. It was a little windy, but it was not too
bad. After sunset, it was getting
chilly due to higher elevation. It is
9721 feet (2963m) elevation. The night
sky was really beautiful, however we had to sleep because we would had to wake
up earlier for the hiking. I guess it
is better to stay more than one night if people have extra time.
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