Fragrance Lake Trail

"Take Nothing But Photo's; Leave Nothing But Footprints"

It's not a hard hike. It's actually one of the easiest trails up any of the Chuckanut trails, in my honest opinion. However, I have, recently, had a friendly visitor on the site contact me about this and I must retrack a bit on whether this is an easy trail for someone who hasn't been on it before or not. After being on this particular trail many times, can I truely then say it was "easy!" In all honestly, I do remember the first time and, well, I appreciate my visitors who will give it to me straight! No, it was not easy, though, still not hard or difficult, so I will agree with this other hiker/visitor that Fragrance Lake Trail should be labeled as moderate.

We started at the trail head across from the Larrabee State Park entrance, so it's only a 1.9 mile hike up to the lake.

I hiked the trail this time in my sandals, so that tells you a bit how difficult it really is, however, I don't suggest it. Also, a pregnant gal was on her way down when we were going up. And a few small children were on the trail with parental supervision as well. So you could say hiking to Fragrance Lake is fine for families and people with pets.

Some crazy trees, huh? It's really amazing how they survive with their roots on top of rocks like that. As you can see the Fragrance Lake trail is kept up pretty well. You don't find a bunch of garbage laying around, either. Now and then I'll run into a candy wrapper or a cigarette butt. I just put them in my pocket and keep moving!

Besides seeing some beautiful trees you'll also find some interesting flowers and berries. My mother-in-law always told my husband as a rule of thumb..."if the birds don't eat the berries, neither should you!" The ones we saw here, were not being eaten by the birds and hopefully, not by anyone.

We also saw a plant getting ready to flower. There was absolutely no other plant like it around at all on the trail. I didn't take a picture of it. I just wanted to leave it alone! It was just simply amazing!

So what "could have" taken us only half an hour to get to the top of the Fragrance Lake trail to the lake, took us a couple hours as we stopped every 20-30 feet taking pictures of some pretty awesome scenary! But then, the lake is pretty awesome, too. there is a "Look-Out Point" just before the lake...we didn't want to get too side tracked so we opted for the lake. Beautiful lake, isn't it? It makes it well worth the hike up to see it.

When we got there, there were kids swimming around with floaties and others swimming without...I wished I had planned for the hike, I would have jumped in myself!

There's a trail all the way around the lake. Several other trails that lead to other area's of the Chuckanut's, too. It is really a great place to go and hang out for a day and do some peaceful exploring, have a picnic...

To get to this trail, simply take the Old Fairhaven Parkway exit off of I-5 and follow it a couple of miles to Chuckanut Drive. Turn left and follow it 2 or 3 miles to the first Larrabee State Park sign you see on the right. The trail head for Fragrance Lake is on the left. You can park there if there is room or go down into Larrabee and walk up.

Just at the base of the trail head is also a box where you can give a donation to help keep up trails if you wish.

Happy trails!

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