Broomstick to Nine Corner Lake Hike

I'm a little late on this blog. This hike was on the 10th of January but here goes. Randy and I took Emily with us and arrived at the Nine Corner Lake trail head parking by 9am. The morning was cold, about 20 degrees and overcast but we were up for a hike. Several cars were there already and by 0915, it seemed everyone had arrived. Kathy Miles had advertized the hike in a couple of different media so we had several new people with us for the hike. Altogether, I think about 20, perhaps the biggest number of people turning out for a hike in many a long month.

Kathy's husband Don was along to help shuttle drivers. So we loaded up vehicles with all the passengers they could carry and shuttled hikers up to the Broomstick Lake trailhead. Then, drivers took the cars back to the Nine Corner Lake parking area and Don brought them all back. The only car still at the Broomstick Lake trailhead was Kathy's. All other cars were at Nine Corner Lake. Shuttling finished, we headed off toward Broomstick by about 10am.

The trail was unbroken snow and Gail started us out by breaking trail. We were strung out along the way pretty well as some members hike a little faster than others. About 3/4 of the way to Broomstick, we took a hard left (south) and began the bushwhack to Nine Corner Lake.

At one point, the trail led over a pretty steep spot and a few of us decided to slide down rather than step down.
A few places along the way held some interesting giant boulders, perhaps glacial erratics.

Several members had compasses and GPS units and a confab with devices and maps was held for several minutes.
The extra time paid off tho as we came out to Nine Corner Lake right where our hike leader wanted to. About this point, the sun came out but the day was still very cold. The plan was to hike out on the lake from this point but when a few of the hikers got out there, there was slushy ice. Feeling this was an unsafe condition, we continued to bushwhack thru the woods. We did this until we got to the area right across from where the Nine Corner Lake trail comes out to the lake.


Here, snow machine tracks on the lake reassured us that the ice would hold and we crossed safely to the trail. It was here we met a few hikers that missed Kathy at the meeting place and decided to meet us at the lake. Since a bit of wind was blowing, we hiked up the now snow machine packed trail to the Y intersection, out of the wind and had a bite to eat.


The hike out to the trailhead was uneventful and very fast due to the well packed trail. Once out to the cars, about 3 hours after our start, several people decided to meet at the Lake Pleasant Inn for some warming drinks. It was a great day out.