Mirror Lake

I’m pretty sure that they should rename this place «mosquito lake.» This was a beautiful trail but even with the amount of bug spray I put on, I still got eaten to pieces. But this is assuming you can even find this place to begin with.
My husband and I spent a ridiculous amount of time driving and driving up hills, backward down hills, on dirt roads, hanging off cliffs… we were so turned around, there were no signs, and our GPS and phones didn’t have any reception. Eventually we passed a campsite where some very nice people gave us directions — there were a ton of forks in the road with no signs and they eventually told us to go up the hill the second on the right. Thank goodness for them, otherwise I’m not sure we would have ever found it.
However, that wasn’t the end of our journey. Once we parked and found the trail, we had read that you have to hike 0.5 miles up to get to the trailhead. There are seemingly two trails — one that goes right and one that goes left that has a little wooden post marker. We accidentally went right and ended up at a dead end after going up a really steep hill that took us to what looked like a parking lot. There were AK shot gun shells everywhere and what looked like the remains of clay pigeons. Lovely.
At this point, I was already pretty wiped (yes, most people probably wouldn’t have been by this point but I’m lazy) but I was determined to find the darn trail since we had come this far. We went back down the hill and found the beginning of the trail that is marked by a teeny tiny wooden post. Blink and you’ll miss it. From this point, the trail is about 0.5 miles to Cottonwood Lake and then another 0.5 miles to Mirror Lake. Cottonwood Lake is very pretty but there are SO many mosquitoes that I’d recommend taking a quick picture and then continuing on. The trail itself isn’t too strenuous — I think the walk to the trail head is the hardest part. Mirror Lake is beautiful and well worth the 1.5 mile hike. The trick is that once you see the lake, keep following the path because you can get right up to the water and see the lake in its entirety.
I’m really glad that we came here and did this hike — I can’t say that I’d come again — the mosquitoes were just too much for me. But definitely worth it at least once.

Nice hike on the I-​90 corridor. Mirror Lake is very pretty for the amount of effort it takes to get there. I left the trailhead at around 10am on a Saturday and didn’t see too many people on my way up. It was more crowded on the way down, and from the number of backpackers I saw, I bet all of the campsites filled up by late afternoon. Great place to take your kids.
Cottonwood Lake isn’t much, but it’s nice to have something to look at after only a mile. Then it’s another half mile to Mirror. From there, you hit the PCT and there are a lot of options to extend your hike.
The directions make it sound like you just go straight on FR 5480 to the trailhead. There is one point a few miles in where you actually need to make a slight right to stay on 5480, and if you go straight, you will end up on FR 112, which is not a good place to be.