Backbone Lake is a nearly circular pocket lake on Backbone Ridge north of Packwood. It is set in fairly heavy timber after a short hike from the trailhead. The trail is somewhat steep but not too difficult for the average weekend warrior. It starts in a rocky clearing and traverses some rocky slope before entering the timber which makes for a good shaded escape especially on a hot summer afternoon.

The lake is your typical deep pocket lake with little in the way of shallows as the bottom drops away rapidly from shore. Access to the water is via fallen timber that extends into the lake. The water is gin clear (at least st the time we fished it). We caught several small but beautiful rainbows using Panther Martins in silver finish. Based on the fact that this lake hasn't been stocked in over a decade it is obvious that the original hatchery stock has managed to reproduce in the lake. We didn't catch anything of any size but suspect that there should be a couple of decent size deeper in the lake. Would suspect the depth to be roughly 40 feet at the deepest but saw little in the way of insects so the hatch must be brief...most likely damsel and dragonfly as they tend to frequent these log filled sub alpine lakes.

Jake Dogfish

5/12/2008 5:14:00 PM

Thanks for the reports. I am going to search out those lakes if I ever head out that way.

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