Antilon Overlook

I had taken my parents on this hike two years ago before they moved to the area, and while at their house for dinner on Sunday night, they mentioned the trail is in very rough shape. I decided to go take a look for myself, hoping that wasn't the case, and I could get in a nice walk with the dog, while enjoying wildflowers and views of the lake.

I decided to drive down Antilon Spur Forest Service Road, as there had been work done on it during the Pioneer Fire, and the top part looked ok. The bushes on the side of the road were starting to encroach, but I made it without scratching up my car, and found a dispersed camping site to pull off and begin the hike. Last time I had gone down a little lower, but the road had been pretty rough, and there was still a rutted out section, but it would have been fine for my Subaru Solterra.

Antilon Lake

I walked past Antilon Lake, where the stand of Aspen trees' light green leaves made a nice contrast with the Coniferous trees in the background. The osprey nest I had seen two years ago was gone, although I did see an osprey circling overhead. So far the road was in decent shape and I was hoping my parents had taken a different route.

About a half mile from my car, there was a large obstruction of dirt, rocks and branches in the road , as well as a fire pit which looked like it had been recently used. This certainly hadn't been here two years ago, and was definitely man made.

End of the road

I picked my way through the obstruction, and my dog was able to do the same without too much effort. In front of me was a mixture of downed trees and shrubs, new growth coming up, and what appeared to be trenches in the ground. I know they had been doing some work in the area during the Pioneer Fire, and at first I thought this must be one of the fire breaks they created. But the road was an existing "break" in the vegetation, and now there was a lot more fuel, so it couldn't have been a deliberate fire break. I'm guessing they didn't want people using the old road and placed all the debris to let it go back wild.

Downed trees

I kept going along the old road, hoping it might get better farther up. It wasn't too hard to get through all the vegetation and downed trees, but it certainly wasn't enjoyable. And I was a little concerned my puppy, now 7 months old, might have some trouble, but I think he had an easier time finding his way than I did. Eventually I decided to bail on making it to the overlook with a nice view of the lake. It wasn't going to be fun walking back through this, and a quick consult of my track showed I could directly cut over to get back to my car. I had to pass through a dry creek bed, which was quite choked with vegetation, but found a spot that wasn't too bad.

Once across the dry creek bed, it was easy going. There weren't any thick stands of vegetation on this side and I was able to pick my way up the hill back towards the car. It was a southern facing slope, and there were a lot more flowers here, including Wax Currant, Longleaf Phlox, Pungent Desert Parsley and Dark-throated Shooting Star, in addition to the ever present Arrowleaf Balsamroot.

Sagebrush False Dandelion

As we climbed up the hill, we passed through some rocky areas. I was a little concerned we might run into rattlesnakes, as they are around Antilon Lake and this seemed like prime real estate for them. Fortunately, there were no encounters. My puppy Summit even found a nice spot to stand amongst the Arrowlead Balsamroot for a photo!

My puppy Summit

Dark-throated Shooting Star

Soon we were back in the car. It was a short hike, and a bit of a bummer that its no longer worth doing. But at least there are plenty of other hikes in the area. And we ran into my parents on the side of the grade creek forest road, and got a longer walk in with them and their dog.