Accessed by getting off the Santiam Highway and driving behind the Hoodoo ski area, you find the trailhead for Patjens Lakes on your right while the substantial Big Lake campground is on the left. Coming back from the 2011 Shadow Lake fire, the area is still largely burned out trees, which has its own stark beauty.
You initially walk along Big Lake and can see Hoodoo and Hayrick Bluff across the lake.
The only fall color for this October hike were some low-growing bushes.
There was lots of interesting dried foliage and arty shapes in the burned out trees.
In the sunlight, the burned logs had a silver sheen to them as you can somewhat tell from the log above, plus many of the remaining trees had slipped their bark and been polished to a lighter silver, so it was a very striking forest of black and white trees--all vaguely shining in the pale sunlight.
There are supposedly 3 or 4 small "Patjens Lakes" but one of them was completely dried while one still had water. Not a good year for lakes fed by snowmelt.
Unfortunately, we did not get to do entire loop trail. Fairly do-able hike with no demanding elevation gains, but there were a lot of ups and downs; it is about 6 miles long whether you do the loop or an out-and-back.
You initially walk along Big Lake and can see Hoodoo and Hayrick Bluff across the lake.
There was lots of interesting dried foliage and arty shapes in the burned out trees.
There are supposedly 3 or 4 small "Patjens Lakes" but one of them was completely dried while one still had water. Not a good year for lakes fed by snowmelt.
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