General Creek Trail to Lily Pond at Sugar Pine Point State Park

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General Creek Trail to Lily Pond at Sugar Pine Point State Park

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(2 votes, 2 reviews)

Difficulty: Easy
Length: 5.1 miles / 8.2 km
Duration: Half day

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Overview: General Creek Trail is a wide, level trail that starts off just behind the General Creek Campground at Sugar Pine State Park. The trail initially follows the historical 1960 Olympics Cross Country Skiing Trail, and eventually becomes more narrow and provides a short final climb towards Lily Pond.

Points of Interest

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Trailhead

Make your way towards the back of the General Creek Campground near camp site 150.

General Creek Trail is clearly marked and starts behind a wooden gate. The trail starts off as a wide flat dirt trail.

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Start of Lily Pond Trail

When you reach the point where General Creek bends of towards the left across a bridge, stay toward the narrow trail on the right. This is the start of Lily Pond Trail.

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Lily pond trail junction

Take the narrow trail that climbs up to your right. This trail leads you straight to Lily Pond.

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Lily Pond

You can walk around the pond, which is small and shallow to approach its shore. You can even scramble around the lake to meet the main trail at the other end again, but it is recommended to trace back your steps from the end of the trail.

Pictures in this guide taken by: therenovator, chris, joost

How does this work?

General Creek Trail to Lily Pond shows up on a lot of trail reviews. I'll share some local knowledge, since I live in the neighborhood and run, ride, snowshoe, and ski out there on a regular basis.

First, Lily Pond is interesting, but not worth a destination in itself. We give tourists lots of directions to Lily Pond. Lily Pond is just, well, a lily pond. The real beauty of this trail begins if you skip Lily Pond and head toward Lost Lake.

If you pass the turnoff to Lily Pond and just keep going, the valley opens up to meadows with a winding trail and beautiful wildflowers in July-July (and still going in September 2011 because of the long winter).

The trail eventually crosses General Creek and winds it's way through a granite slot canyon with lots of views. The creek is a nice place to turn around or have a bite to eat. Or keep climbing for nice views.

My suggestion: skip Lily Pond till the way back if you feel like it. Keep going and check out the meadows and flowers and granite slot canyon beyond. Do Lily Pond on the way back if you feel like it.

This is also a great trail for intermediate and stronger mountain bikers. We usually do it as an out and back. Fun windy singletrack with just a few technical sections. It can also be turned into a longer loop coming down from Richardson Lake (there is about a 5-8 minute hike-a-bike section downhill).
Visited on Sep 18, 2011

by HighSierraBear on Sep 18, 2011 at 01:31:47 am

This was a nice hike to take in Fall--the leaves were changing and there was a little bit of snow on the ground (enough for me to attempt to make a small snowman), but the area wasn't particularly scenic. I prefer more viewpoints and this hike didn't have many.

The lake pond was pretty empty this time of year, but I imaging it would be more full in early summer.
Visited on Oct 28, 2010

by chris on Jan 26, 2011 at 03:27:04 pm