The Lodgepole Lake area is one of our favorite destinations for winter snowshoeing.   The road is usually kept clear right to the Rec Site at the lake at 1415 m elevation (4652 ft).    All routes from the lake are set by snowshoers or snowmobiles.   The Chuwhels Mountain FSR is the main corridor, but many branch roads go off either side and ponds can be used as open corridors.   Between ponds and double tracks are some snowshoe tracks, some motorcycle routes, and some open cutblocks.   The area has been replanted too, so the edges of plantations can also be used as linking routes.   There isn’t much in the way of signed trails, but once snowshoers have established routes, we can follow their tracks.   On this early winter day, I set tracks along a loop route that I have done before.

There is a large pond below and to the west of Lodgepole Lake.   I went down the road then onto the end of the marshy lake, breaking trail.

Blue skies and scattered clouds allowed the sun to warm the open areas on my cross-ponds route.

Humps and small hummocks are formed when snows fall on the reed beds beside the open water.

An inflow stream from the north feeds the pond which then drains into Walloper Creek.

A flagged route had some new windfall at the west end of the pond, but I skirted the obstacles and worked my way on a good route through the forest to an old branch road.

I crossed another long marshy pond farther west, still breaking trail, following the drainage south, shown here in silver.

I came off the end of that pond, then followed a set of pole markers through the edge of a cutblock out to another connector road.   This is the hardest area to navigate.

Eventually I stomped my way back to Lodgepole Lake, a beautiful spot on a sunny winter day.

We plan to return to the area to explore some areas on the north side, toward Eureka Lake.