Way up in the northwestern part of Montana, smack in the middle of the Kootenai National Forest, is a trail that takes you along three glacier crevass lakes, The Fish Lakes to be exact.
During my 4th of July camping foray into the woods, my friend M and I gathered up a passel of the teenagers accompanying us and took off on The Fish Lakes trail for a bit of a ramble to see what we could see.
To start with, the trail there was like walking through a bit of a Western Washington rain forest, there were cedars and ferns galore lining the trail.
Now this year we have had above average precipitation, so before you could say soggy diaper on cheese board my shoes were saturated. All of our shoes were, but we didn't care, we were on an adventure!
In fact, we felt like we were the cast in an adventure movie as we slowly ascended the side of the mountain towards the first of the Fish Lakes. It was like walking through the belly of a mountain, with steep glacial granite slopes on each side of us. The kids led the way, and more than once M and I commented on how nice it was to be hiking with people who were in it to win it. (Those kids moved out let me tell ya!)
Before too long (and because I had such good conversation and visuals to partake in) we arrived at the first lake. The water was so blue! Crisp, clear, glacial blue! I mean, check out this tree:
And of course, our kids being a bit of a bunch of heathens, my batch jumped into the barely above freezing glacial waters for a bit of a swim. No thank you!
They said it was great, but I noticed they didn't stay in too long, and while they were recovering their core temp and circulatory abilities, I noticed why the lakes were so christened the fish lakes, seriously, the amount of trout jumping around was impressive!
We then decided to press on to the next in the chain of lakes. I mean, we had no idea how far it was, our feet were squishy, and it was only threat level soggy underclothes on the humidity index, so we were totally up for some more adventure.
Now, the trail itself was pretty decent, it started as a narrow dirt trek and then became a chunks of rock lined delight. I would not recommend it for a novice hiker, because in some places the massive rains we had uprooted some trees and we had to do a bit of vaulting and scrambling. As I am part mountain goat, I love trail hazards, but I get that's not everyone's cup of hiking tea.
Before long we had arrived at the second of The Fish Lakes. To be honest, it wasn't quite as glorious as the first. It was still beautiful, but a bit more swampy and not quite as glacial-like in the visuals department.
As quite a bit of time had elapsed and we had hiked in some sweltering heat up and down the side of the mountains along the lake, we decided that hiking to two of the three Fish Lakes was what we were going to accomplish for the day. We turned around and went back the way we had come, stopping at the first (and most gorgeous) lake to eat the sandwiches we had packed for lunch.
Lounging on the side of the lake, chewing on sandwiches, while listening to the trout flail about was one of the most glorious bits of the hike. The trail along the lake cuts across the huge rise of granite that lines the east side of the lake. All that granite was awesome to lounge on because the mosquito army did not tread into that territory, so we got to enjoy our lunch un-molested by the blood suckers.
Well, not that they ever bother me anyway, I am rarely, if ever bitten by mosquitoes. Yes, I know I am evil lol lol!
After our lunch we pushed on, I did stop at the north end of the lake in the cedar grove and take a few pictures of the awesome fungi I spied on the forest floor. This coral looking one made my day!
And before long we had arrived back to where we had started, over seven miles of hiking later. I truly loved this hike, and if you are ever in the Kootenai National Forest near Mt. Henry in Montana I totally recommend strolling here, just make sure you are armed with either bear spray or a firearm at the very least. It's grizzly country and they can be a bit on the cantankerous side. We had all the things and were a pretty large crew, so I wasn't really concerned, but prepared is better than not, and the wilderness is not a place to be lax in that department.
All in all though, it was a beyond glorious meander, and I felt not an ounce of guilt eating a massive pile of food later when we arrived back in camp, hiking bonus time!!
And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's well-traveled and un-digested by wildlife unlike that satellite phone from Jurassic Park iPhone.
