A Day in the Tobacco Roots

If you will all swear yourselves to secrecy, I will tell you where we went yesterday.  No telling until I get an oath because I'm not telling anyone else but family.

We four wheeled to about a half mile to a high mountain lake.  It's elevation was close to 9000 feet.    

Before arriving at the lake, we investigated a high mountain meadow with elk hoof prints and flowers.  The importance of this meadow is that it was there I discovered that I own a macro lens for my camera.  For seven years I've owned a lens that said super wide angle on one part and macro on another.  I could easily tell the lens was a wide angle.  The macro part made zero sense to me.  Who ever heard of a wide agle macro lens?  Yesterday, knowing it couldn't possibly work,  I put my camera about two inches from a flower yesterday and found that the macro part was for real.  This is superb!!!

Anyway, back to the outing.  The high lake had flowers, fish, and rock slides.  I mentioned to Wilbur that the map showed other lakes above the first lake we hiked into.  Being slightly deranged, I suggested to Wilbur that we take the short way to the higher lake:  around the lake, across the rock slide, up a hill that was a pile of rocks with a stream running down it that is almost a waterfall.  The hill was only a breath away from needing rock climbing equipment.  

In the middle of the rock slide, I decided I made a big mistake.  But having talked Wilbur into it, he insisted we continue.  Two hours later, we arrived at the higher lakes.  They were smaller, but even more fabulous!   

Dreading the trip down, we walk a little to the right and found an old road that was not very rocky. Using this road, it took only fifteen minutes to descend to the lower lake.  Next time, I'm investigating more before picking a route, particularly in country filled with mines.

I am posting a few picture here.  There are more on my hiking blog.