The Fremont Highway will take you right by Summer Lake, so we drive that route frequently. Usually only as far as the refuge, but this week we kept on going.
Past the southern end of Summer Lake sits the tiny town of Paisley. If you stay on Highway 31 for another 30 miles you’ll run into 395 and that eventually gets you to Reno, Nevada.
Instead, we took a hard right in the middle of Paisley, heading up into the Fremont Forest along the Chewaucan River.
The initial plan was to run up the back side of Winter Ridge and come out at Silver Lake.
The Chewaucan is a beautiful little stream, we’ll definitely be back to fish. We’d explored the northern portion out to Fremont Point and got a spectacular view of Summer Lake Valley
The canyon cut by the Chewaucan winds south through pine forests, past numerous camp sites and side creeks, eventually running into USFS 28. This road traverses the top of Winter Ridge and would, in theory, lead to Silver Lake.
I say in theory because we didn’t calculate snow pack and got turned back by blocked roadways.
Plans changed and we headed south to Dairy Creek and around Quartz Mountain intent on meeting up with State 140, Klamath Falls Highway. Foiled again by snow covered roadways, we retraced our route.
Undaunted, we’ll return to this area and complete the loop once the snowy grip of winter has been removed.