Today’s weather was nice, and with Kyra and Hannah visiting we felt like we should take advantage of it. We piled into the CR-V and headed north to Jewel Basin. We stopped at the ranger station to learn about trail conditions, thinking we might need snowshoes. But the rangers didn’t know anything about the conditions, because no one “official” checks on the trails or even the roads in that area of the mountains during the winter.
We drove up into the hills, crawling up an old forest service road that had a thick layer of snow and ice (mostly ice). Eventually we found the road to be impassable, and stopped at a trailhead. According to the map, five miles uphill was a nice lake. We started upward and made it maybe two miles before we hit enough snow that we had to turn back. The trail was becoming hard to follow (unmaintained, you know) and Kyra had only brought tennis shoes on her trip.
At our turnaround point we stopped for some pictures. Here are the three girls.
We had come high enough up the mountain that we could see the vast Flathead Valley spread out before us. In the far distance are the Salish Mountains, with Flathead Lake barely visible in front of them (center right). On the left is the east side of the Swan Range– our house is on the opposite side, probably near the left edge of the photo. In the foreground is Echo Lake and the forest surrounding it. Pretty cool view.
Hannah brought her camera– actually, she brought three– so it was fun to shoot alongside her.
The hike was fun, and we agreed that it’ll be great to tackle it again in the summer when the trail is clear and we can make it up to the lake.
