This hike was incredible! If you’re deciding on whether or not you should do it, definitely do it in the fall! On the All Trails website/app it says the hike is 9 miles round trip – that is if you park at the trailhead and walk (guessing 45 minutes) up to the start of the hike. The hike doesn’t actually start until you’ve reached a sign that says “Town of Crystal Mill miles.” The rocky road leading up to the start of the hike is very rocky, and uphill. If you have an all wheel drive car that sits up high, I would highly recommend driving it up as far as you can. What I mean by that is some vehicles will park on the side of the hill where there is a pull-off, and others (like myself) will drive to the very top where there are a few parking spots. If you decide to do this, I would also recommend starting this hike early! I got to the trailhead around 9am, which in my opinion was perfect timing. If I would have waited to go any later, there would have been more traffic and there wouldn’t have been many, if any, places to park towards the top.
I drive a Honda CRV and my vehicle did just find driving up the rocky road. Many people passed us that had jeeps an ATV’s (which is probably a smarter idea if you own one or want to rent one). It took me about 20 minutes total to drive up to the top, if you choose to hike up it is about .6 miles I believe – but since it’s rocky and uphill it would probably take you 45 minutes. The sign says you need a 4×4 to drive the road, I have all wheel drive and did just fine. If you have a low clearance vehicle, probably not the best idea.
When you first start the hike you’ll come upon a beautiful lake called “Lizzard Lake”
The views along the way are spectacular! Especially if you go during the fall time. If you look at the reviews online for this hike, you may see people complaining of having to constantly move to the side on the path to let vehicles through that are driving all the way to Crystal Lake … what those people don’t mention is that they more than likely started the hike later in the day. As mentioned before, I started around 9:20am, got to the Mill at 10:45, stayed for awhile, left at 11:15, and got back to my car by 12:40. On my way to the Mill I didn’t have to step aside for any vehicles, in fact there wasn’t even that much traffic. Once I started to make my way back to my car though, is when there were plenty more people and many more vehicles coming through. It didn’t bother me since I had already done the hike and was just making my way back to the car at this point.
Once you get to the Mill, you have the option of paying $10 to go down towards the water to get some additional shots… which I would totally recommend! I arrived to the mill around 10:45am and although there were quite a bit of people there already, there were maybe a total of 5 people at the bottom towards the water.
megsonthemove.org 