Friday, June 11, 2010

16th and 17th Klaire and Victor Lakes




June 11th, 2010 Today me and Morgan decided to go to Kelpler-Bradley Recreation Area and finish swimming the lakes in this area. I didn't notice that Victor and Klaire were in this state park until I started looking closely at the maps. Access to both of these lakes is from the parking lot by Long Lake. From the parking lot you will need to take the trail to long lake then turn left and follow the trail to Victor about 15 minute walk. Bring the mosquito repellant, they are pretty bad. After about 15 minutes you will find a trail down to Klaire Lake. Klaire Lake will be located on our right side. Once we reached the shore I could see lots of scuds (shrimp) swimming in the water a favorite food source for fish and a good sign of a healthy lake. Since the bottom was muddy I put on my gear - flippers on the shore and jumped in. Since this a small lake and the access point is right in the middle of the lake thus I decided to swim a triangle. The length of the lake took me 220 strokes or about 550 yards. Total time to complete the triangle was 15 minutes. Then I quickly got out of the water and walked 50 yards down the trail and found a trail on our left that took us down to Victor lake. Our access point was right in the middle of submerged trees. Again this lake is small so I decided to swim another triangle. Total time was 12 minutes. The water temperature of both of these lake was around 64 F and felt pretty good. I would recommend swimming in these lakes but finishing out of a float tube would be fun.

Suggestion if you plan to swim these lakes don't wear your wet suit put it on when you get to Klaire and take it off when you finish both swims, otherwise you will heat up to much. Thank god it was cloudy.

Also, I forgot to use vaseline on my neck and the wet suit rubbed another mark. The first time the suit rubbed on my neck it looks like a vampire bit my neck and now it looks like they came back for another feeding.

The trail system that connects all these lakes are used for hikes, mtn. biking -single track or for running. Be careful and watch for bears, because an occasional one have been seen in the area.

Take care

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