Slow Trip to Hell Hole

Drove up to Hell Hole reservoir for a short hike. I wasn't very motivated and left late. Reached Hell Hole and headed across the dam to the trail to the campground. It was pretty hot. Reached the trail and started climbing up the trail. It traverses a steep hill, nearly a cliff, over badly broken granite and volcanic gravel. It was hot and not very inspiring. I didn't get very far and decided I'd had enough and we turned back. Even Commando didn't seem too enthusiastic. The vulture that circled overhead was certainly not very inspiring either.

Just at the end of the dam there's a slope to the lake so we headed down. Commando needed water and there were plenty of driftwood sticks for me to throw and huge driftwood logs for me to sit on.

Fortunately there was a rocky, beachy slope so I could toss sticks pretty far out before Commando had to swim. The water is very cold and I really don't want to have to swim in it to rescue him. He is very confident. He swam out several times to try to retrieve a stick that appeared to still be firmly attached to the log jammed just under the surface.

I had noticed some weird looking thing on the bottom of the lake in the shallow water. They look like fleshy pink and white tulip with octopus type tentacles. But they don't move, they seem anchored to the bottom. I didn't touch one.

For some time I'd noticed one at the surface that was moving around a bit but didn't think much of it. After a while I focused on it a little more and discovered that a smallish snake was trying to eat one of these weird looking things and was having great difficulty gulping it down.

I watched the snake for a while and kept Commando from bothering him. The poor snake didn't seem to be making much progress so we finally left without viewing the final swallow. I hope he managed to choke it down.