- Joined
- Jun 7, 2005
- Messages
- 1,219
- Reaction score
- 502
- Points
- 473
- Location
- Iowa
- Resorts Owned
- Star Island Kissimmee FL
So went to Bowman Lake yesterday. Took me almost an hour in my rental car to travel the 6 mile gravel, bumpy, winding, pot hole ridden, 1.5 car width road from the ranger station to the Lake. I wanted to take it very slowly to not ding up the car. Very quiet at the lake and only saw a hand full of hikers while hiking. There were stretches of time of an hour or so where I didn't see anyone while hiking. I did encounter a black bear on the trail while hiking. Good thing I was regularly clapping my hands and shouting "Hey bear" while hiking otherwise I might have really startled it. It was around 75 or so feet away and went running uphill into the woods thank goodness.
Saw some kayakers and a paddle boarder while there.
I thought I would use this hike as a warm up to start off the trip as I had believed it was fairly flat. Well it turns out 13 miles of round trip rolling hills had me dead tired when I got back to my car. I was really struggling to make it the last mile back to my car. I should have turned around at the 3 mile point to make it a nice 6 mile warm up hike but didn't do that. My right ankle was bothering me at the end so I'm resting it today. Hopefully I can still do some more hiking on this trip.
The following are early morning shots at Bowman lake (assuming I have the correct links)
Saw some kayakers and a paddle boarder while there.
I thought I would use this hike as a warm up to start off the trip as I had believed it was fairly flat. Well it turns out 13 miles of round trip rolling hills had me dead tired when I got back to my car. I was really struggling to make it the last mile back to my car. I should have turned around at the 3 mile point to make it a nice 6 mile warm up hike but didn't do that. My right ankle was bothering me at the end so I'm resting it today. Hopefully I can still do some more hiking on this trip.
The following are early morning shots at Bowman lake (assuming I have the correct links)