Saturday, June 28, 2008
Avalanche Lake
Today we had a great breakfast cooked and eaten outdoors – my favorite way. The weather here has been fantastic. After cleaning up we walked over to the visitors center to learn about what we should do while we are here and to pick out some good hikes. We were about to take a short one before lunch when we saw Mom & Dad driving in in their motorhome. We got them setup in the campsite next to us and then had lunch.
After lunch we decided to take the Avalanche Lake hike. We drove to the trailhead just beyond the end of Lake McDonald. The ranger had told us the 2 mile each way and 500’ climb would be good for our kids but my be too much for grandparents. With hindsight, that was probably pretty good advice, but my parents persevered, and we eventually made it to the lake. The hike was absolutely spectacular all the way up, going along a beautiful, rushing stream part of the way, and then meandering up through a lush forest. The lake was even more impressive than the trail on the way up. It was surrounded by towering mountains with snow on them with waterfalls cascading down all over the place. I could have sat there all day, but it had taken us from 2:00 to 4:00 to get up there, so we thought we should head back down around 4:45. We eventually made it back to the car and headed back to camp to cook dinner.
It was a spectacular hike that really impressed us.
Here are some pictures from the lake.
Tomorrow we plan to drive around the park to the east side since we were told it is a “must see”.
After lunch we decided to take the Avalanche Lake hike. We drove to the trailhead just beyond the end of Lake McDonald. The ranger had told us the 2 mile each way and 500’ climb would be good for our kids but my be too much for grandparents. With hindsight, that was probably pretty good advice, but my parents persevered, and we eventually made it to the lake. The hike was absolutely spectacular all the way up, going along a beautiful, rushing stream part of the way, and then meandering up through a lush forest. The lake was even more impressive than the trail on the way up. It was surrounded by towering mountains with snow on them with waterfalls cascading down all over the place. I could have sat there all day, but it had taken us from 2:00 to 4:00 to get up there, so we thought we should head back down around 4:45. We eventually made it back to the car and headed back to camp to cook dinner.
It was a spectacular hike that really impressed us.
Here are some pictures from the lake.
Tomorrow we plan to drive around the park to the east side since we were told it is a “must see”.
# posted by Craig @ 10:00 PM 
