Woods Lake Loons, July 9th 2025
When you first arrive to Woods Lake, you're greeted by an absolutely beautiful scene. We were lucky and had still water for a top notch reflection!
chefs kiss
Before you get to that all natural beauty though, you have to suffer in the parking lot getting absolutely eaten alive by various bugs. At least it's a pretty there! The Woods Lake trailhead sign hides from you in the foliage on the north side of the road.
From the trailhead it is a very easy .3 mile walk to the lake. Don't forget to sign the logbook. That is a threat.
Once you get to the lake though, this is the absolutely stunning scene you can get from the rocks on the shore.
And if you look left a hair, you get even more beauty.
Far off in the distance you'll see a private beach for the Lapland Lake Nordic Vacation Center which is open year round. https://laplandlake.com/
Basically as soon as we arrived, we saw this eagle flying across the lake!
Now it's a touch creepy, but here's the private beach from the resort pictured above. What? I had my 600mm lens, I just had to use it. Notice the two kayaks coming our way? Spoiler alert!
As we were sitting around this loon and its baby were meandering around the lake.
And with a stroke of luck, those people from the private beach at the other end of the lake started kayaking our way. We ended up chatting for a few minutes and it turns out they paddle the area regularly, and knew of a second baby loon that was taken by that eagle we saw earlier 🙁
The loons didn't really seem to mind the kayakers presence, but they did change direction towards us!
After a short while of just watching the loons, we decided to move west around the lake... There wasn't much...
Now I think this next picture is just wild. There's the eagle watching over the lake, and the (papa?) loon almost directly under it. Thinking about the circle of life with Mr. Eagle taking the other baby loon recently was not a happy thought :/
If you're interested in some other peoples' journeys to Woods Lake:
Andy