Chukar Lake
Just south of Potholes Reservoir is the Columbia National Wildlife Refuge, an area of basalt lava cliffs, lakes, ponds, grasslands, and canyons. It is part of the channeled scablands, a corridor scoured by the release of an ice age lake, now an eroded and complex terrain. We drove into the middle of the Refuge to hike the Frog Lake – Mesa Loop – Crab Creek trail, the Goose Lake Plateau route, and the Chukar Lake area on two spring days.
The trailhead is south of the O’Sullivan Dam on the Blythe Lake – Chukar Lake Road. We drove past Corral Lake and hiked from the end of Blythe Lake.
The single track trail we followed bears east above Blythe Lake, then past Chukar Lake to a hill overlooking the Crab Creek marshes.
We hiked around the lakes but we could have continued past the marshes and beyond. There are a few trails, but the open terrain allows exploration in every direction.
We chose to loop up into the grasslands, coming around under basalt cliffs back to our starting point for a 5 km loop hike.
This quiet area invites exploration on foot over the mesas, through the gullies, and across grasslands to viewpoints over lakes ,ponds, and rocky landscapes.
More information:
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