This trail sees traffic most of the year but it is heaviest from Memorial Day through Labor Day. The trail is 7.5 miles long (round trip) and is rated as moderately difficult. This is a wide, gravelled trail, designed for hikers and bikers but not for horses or motorized vehicles. About half a mile in the trail forks. The right fork is the main route while the left fork goes to the Big Lake lookout tower. You may be granted access into the tower but the views from the steps or from the rocky knoll the tower stands on are pretty good, too. Just look out for lightning: it's a steel tower and makes a great lightning rod.

The main trail passes through Ponderosa pines and Douglas firs, then passes Spillman Springs (a series of water troughs made off dugout logs, built in the CCC days of the Depression) and then drops down to cross Forest Service Road 24. Then the trail merges into another old road and passes Indian Springs. Somewhere in here the old road becomes an old railroad grade, a remnant of the Maverick Line of the old Apache Railway Company, a line that transported logs to the lumber mill at McNary from the 1940's to the early 1970's. The railroad bed has a slight uphill grade to it.

About 2.5 miles past Indian Springs you'll come to the connector trail between this trail and the West Fork Trail #628. In another half mile you'll leave the railroad bed and cut through a strip of trees before entering a large meadow. From the meadow, you'll cross the 249E road to rise and dip near a rock ledge. Just over the ledge is the Rainbow Campground, connected by a spur trail that leaves the campground off of Loop D. The main trail crosses the 249E again and then ends at the campground parking area.

Elevation: 9,000'

Access:On the south side of Forest Road 249E, southeast of Big Lake, is where the trailhead is.

USGS Maps: 280 SW Big Lake. This is a recently constructed trail (summer, 1991) and isn't on any maps yet.