Ross Moore Lake lies in the forested lands east of Lac le Jeune.   It is a popular fishing lake, but all the routes in are either long or rough, best suited to high clearance vehicles.   The route to the Rec Site at the south follows a network of roads from the Brigade Lake – Long Lake area (article).   Another choice is to hike or snowshoe in from the Lac le Jeune side.   We drove on the Ross Moore Lake Forest Service Road for a short distance (we had hoed to have driven farther), but there were fallen trees and deep puddles so we parked and hiked in for 5.5 km to a lookout on top of a hill overlooking Ross Moore Lake, a favorite spot.

The route is fairly open to the logged area west of Fred Lake, then it enters the high country forest.   The rest of the route is a marginal double track with deep puddles, fallen trees, rocky sections, and unsigned junctions.

hikers and their reflections

Some navigation is required to make all the right turns so hikers should carry a good map or a GPS (with a good map installed).   We hiked to the top of a hill on the north side of Ross Moore Lake for the view and a lunch break.

The forest was quite wet, but a few wildflowers were blooming along the route as we hiked east to the lookout.   On the way back we followed the same route for a while, then we turned north to follow a different sequence of backroads back to our starting spot.

Canada violets

Even with a map, there are lots of tracks to figure out among the ponds, lakes, swamps, and dense forests of the high country (1320m or 4330 feet).   The-out-and-back route was 11.6 km, interspersed with many bottomless puddles to get around, some log walking, and a number of obstacles along the way, all part of the fun.   The mosquitoes weren’t out yet so we hiked for 3.5 hours (including lunch).   We will be back to snowshoe this route in winter.