Backpacking 2023: Hogan Lake, Russian Wilderness

It was time to go, so we packed up and went.

As you'll recall, last year our trip was canceled by the McKinney fire.

But we still wanted to go on that trip, so we tried again. And this time everything was different. There was no fire, there was no smoke, there were no road closures. There was simply blue sky and clear air.

The Russian Wilderness is one of the smallest and least-visited of California's Wilderness Areas, for reasons well-described by its wilderness.net page:

Elevations range from 4,800 feet to Russian Peak's 8,200 feet. An extensive trail system generally crosses steep and rocky ground, difficult going for stock animals. Stock forage is limited in most of the lakeside campsites. The Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) runs the entire length of the area north-south for about 17 miles, but stays high with few campsites and snow until late in the season.

We visited the Russian Wilderness once before, eight years ago, and stayed mostly in the south-eastern part of the wilderness. On that trip we took a day hike and got to a spot on the Pacific Crest Trail where we could see the other part of Taylor Lake, which is the primary access point (besides the PCT) to the north-western part of the wilderness.

To get to the Taylor Lake trailhead, you first go to tiny Etna, CA, then you find the Sawyers Bar road, well-known among aficionados of crazy mountain roads.

The drop down the back side touches 18%. The road is very rough and mostly one lane. The speed is very slow most of the way, like 10-15 mph. The road is really remote and almost no services are available. It can get bloody hot on summer afternoons. Sound horn on all blind curves. Not recommended for campers, trailers, or drivers inexperienced in mountain driving. No services for 40 miles.

Happily, we didn't drive that section of the road, for the Taylor Lake trailhead is accessed by a Forest Service dirt road (quite the experience itself; watch out for the cows!) which splits off from the Sawyers Bar road just after you reach Etna Summit. We spent about 30 minutes hanging out at Etna Summit (which has lovely views), while we waited for our second vehicle, which had accidentally started off on French Creek road, which takes you to the other side of the wilderness area (luckily they figured out that mistake quickly).

The trail from Taylor Lake trailhead to Hogan Lake is not complicated to describe:

• You first hike 0.3 miles, mostly flat, on a wide and well-traveled trail up to Taylor Lake.
• At the fork, where the main trail goes around the east side of Taylor Lake and up to the PCT, you instead choose the trail around the west side of Taylor Lake, which almost immediately proceeds up a steep ridge to a saddle at just above seven thousand feet. During this part of the trip you gain about 500 feet of elevation, and the trail is clear and well-maintained.
• Beyond the saddle, the trail plummets! It rapidly descends nearly 1,000 feet, snaking along ridgelines, blasting through immense fields of manzanita, hurdling immense basalt and granite boulders, vaulting innumerable downed trees. Quite the obstacle course.
• But there are no more forks in the trail, you simply follow it to the end, where you find Hogan Lake.

The entire route from trailhead to Hogan Lake is about 4 miles, and with full packs it took us several hours, with breaks along the way to admire the views and have lunch and whatnot.

Because Hogan Lake is pretty much the only place you can easily go from Taylor Lake trailhead, it is relatively popular, and indeed we met a quite large group of "Dads and Lads" (as they called themselves) along the trail.

Happily, they were going the other direction on the trail, for they had just finished their trip, and for the most part we had Hogan Lake to ourselves.

Hogan Lake is relatively shallow, and was surprisingly warm and very pleasant for swimming. It was full of fish and frogs and tadpoles and what (I think) were California newts? (We chose not to sample the toxin from their skin to verify.)

On the internet, you'll find many articles about how to visit nearby Big Blue Lake from Hogan Lake, an adventure which requires ascending a 900 foot canyon face, with no trail, littered with huge fields of scree and sharp boulders, and no shade along the way.

We could see the canyon face clearly from our campsite near the lake, and we certainly wanted to see Big Blue Lake, so we bravely set out on the approach.

But we didn't make it very far.

In fact, even just traveling around the lake shore to the far side of Hogan Lake was quite challenging for us! Unlike many California mountain lakes, there were no casual trails around the lake through the thick and thorny lakefront bushes, and every step we took was fraught with challenge.

And Hogan Lake was so warm, and beautiful, that in the end we didn't truly regret that we couldn't see the other nearby sites; what we found there was pleasant and just what we needed.