Fen Trail #5567

Dogs Off-leash

Features Fishing · Lake · Spring · Views · Wildflowers

Day use is free but there is a fee for overnight camping. There are two pit toilets on the path to the lake and drinking water is available from June to mid-October.

The trail starts just before the entrance sign for Kangaroo Lake and climbs to the ridge above the Pacific Crest Trail on four long switchbacks. There are interpretive signs at several points along the trail. At 0.5 miles from the trailhead you'll reach an overlook for Kangaroo Lake.

At 0.9 miles from the trailhead, you'll pass a signed junction with a trail (#5568) that passes through a meadow and a grove of old-growth trees on its way to an end at Forest Road 40N15. At 1.2 miles from the trailhead, you'll crest the ridge with sweeping views of the Salmon Mountains to the north and the Trinity Alps to the south and west. From the ridgecrest it's a short downhill stroll to the end of the Fen Trail at the PCT.

A popular dayhike involving the Fen Trail is an out-and-back trip from Kangaroo Lake to Bull Lake along the PCT. Sweeping views and wildflowers (in season) make this an easy, but rewarding, hike. You can swim is either Kangaroo or Bull Lakes, but Bull will be the least crowded of the two.

The trail passes several fens, marshy, grassy areas created when bedrock keeps water near the surface. The fens hold patches of California Pitcher Plant or Cobra Lily (Darlingtonia californica). The rare Trinity (or Scott Mountain or Howell's) phacelia is found here, persisting in areas of ultramafic rock substrate in this small section of the Siskiyou-Trinity Mountains.