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Marshall Lake

I love to spend time in the Sawtooth Mountains and I've always thought that fall was the best time for hiking there. June is too early because there's too much snow and the trails are buried. Usually by sometime in early July enough snow has melted that hiking in the high country becomes feaible. Not long after that though, the insects appear. Mosquitoes become a real nuisance. By August the bugs aren't as bad but then it's high season for vacations. Redfish Lake is always a zoo, one of the few places in the Idaho mountains where the crowds are a problem. The backcountry isn't too bad but August is when you see the most people on the trails. That's why fall has always been my favorite season. The days are clear but the cool nights kill off the bugs. After labor day kids are back in school so not many people come to the mountains. The pests are all gone so it's the best time to enjoy the mountains. Fall is short though so most years I still did a lot of hiking during the summer. The Sawtooths are fantastic so it's worthwhile even when conditions aren't ideal.

Unfortunately things have changed. Years ago it seemed that during the summer there might be a forest fire somewhere and you had to avoid that specific area. Now forest fires seem to be bad everywhere. Smoke can eliminate the view and make hiking extremely unpleasant in most of the western United States for the latter half of July and all of August. When we came back from Singapore in 2009 things had gotten so bad that I had to look hard to find a place where I could hike during the summer. I would study forest fire smoke maps on the web and watch the weather forecasts for wind direction to figure out where the mountains would be smoke free for hiking. Each year though it has gotten worse. Now I figure that I can hike through the first half of July. Then sometime in the middle of the month bad fires break out and most of the western US is covered in smoke.

A couple of factors have combined to produce the bad fire seasons that we seem to have every year now. Over a hundred years of wildfire suppression has led to a large build up of fuel in many mountain forests. It also disrupted the natural cycle of the pine beetle, which kills trees but used to be kept under control by occaisional forest fires. The flames would kill the beetles in the bark of infected trees but weren't hot enough to kill the tree. Now there are either big fires, which are so hot that they kill the trees, or there are no fires, so the beetles spread unchecked and kill the trees. Sandy and I were in places in Colorado in 2016 that were so bad that entire forests were dead. As far as we could see, instead of green trees there were just bare grey trunks standing, like a ghost forest. Dead trees mean more fuel for fires too.

The final blow has been climate change. Every summer is hotter and drier than the one before, creating more dangerous fire conditions for a longer time. It seems that the new normal is that the western US (and western Canada too) is covered by smoke from huge forest fires for about two months.

This summer I was optimistic though and was hoping the trend would be reversed. I had high hopes for hiking. I didn't have a good reason. It was just that on the way home from Consimworld Expo, I did a great climb of Wheeler Peak in Great Basin National Park. It was on the day after my birthday. Since I turned sixty five I was hoping to do as much hiking as I could while I was still able to do it. But when I got home I didn't go anywhere for the next two weeks. I was spending time with Sandy and Abby. I was catching up on the Dog Blog. Plus I had been traveling a lot in May/June with trips to Consimworld Expo and Southeast Alaska. It felt good just to take it easy and rest up for a while.

I should have known better. Unfortunately I missed my opportunity. Fire season hit hard in mid-July and it was bad. I walk Abby every morning and from the park near our house I have a good view of the Boise Front. Most days the mountains were heavily obscured by smoke. Looking at the horizon the sky looked brownish-gray instead of blue. On bad days I couldn't see Bogus Basin at all, even though it's only fifteen miles away. On really bad days I could barely see the foothills.

The smoke was coming from far away, from major fires in Northern California in the Trinity Alps north of Redding and from Southern Oregon in the Cascades near Grant's Pass. Most of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Utah and Montana were under a pall of smoke. Visibility was poor and air quality was terrible. As the season went on more fires broke out. Every day I would check the smoke maps. More and more of the US was covered with smoke every day. One day I even read that the smoke from western wildfires was crossing the Atlantic Ocean and reaching as far as Ireland.

Then one Saturday morning I took Abby for her walk and noticed right away that the sky wasn't a dirty brown color. It was bright blue again. I could clearly see the mountains behind downtown Boise. Later that day I checked the smoke map and it looked like the winds were just right so that the smoke was passing to the north and south and missing us. The next day was the same. I decided to take a chance and got up early Monday morning. Abby and I were packed up and on the road before it was light. When the sun finally came up I saw that the sky was still blue and clear of smoke. It was going to be a nice day.

The destination that I picked out for us was Marshall Lake. Although I have been hiking in the Sawtooths for forty years that's one hike that I had never done. Some of the famous hikes like Sawtooth Lake I've done so many times that I lost count long ago, certainly more than a dozen times. Marshall Lake isn't as well known. The hike is listed in the guidebook for the Sawtooths but it never shows up on post cards or on "must do" lists of Sawtooth hikes. I've done the first several miles of the trail a quite a few times. It's the best way to approach the entrance to the cirque below Thompson Peak, either to reach the lake below the north face of Thompson or to do the summit climb of Thompson. But since the I consider the Sawtooths my home mountains, I thought that I should finish the last mile of the hike and go all the way to Marshall Lake at least once. Who knows? I might be surprised and Marshall Lake could turn out to be a really scenic spot.

When we reached the trailhead at Redfish Lake there were a lot of parked cars. I was surprised because I didn't expect many people to be there on a Monday. Since it was still early, most of the cars must have belonged to backpackers who had hiked in over the weekend and were camping in the backcountry. Still, crowded in the Sawtooths isn't like crowded in Yosemite Valley so I wasn't worried.

I put Abby on a leash. I don't know why but from July 1 to Labor Day dogs are supposed to be kept on a leash in the Sawtooth Wilderness. After crossing the road and signing in I only went a few hundred yards down the trail before I let her off. I didn't expect to see many people and I certainly didn't expect to see any rangers in the backcountry. I guess there is some bright side to all of the Forest Service budget cuts over the years. As soon as she was off leash Abby raced over and jumped in Fishhook Creek. She was doing her lab thing.

After an easy mile of level walking along the creek, we turned at a junction and started to climb up the north side of valley. Once we reached the ridge crest we intersected the Alpine Way Trail and turned to follow the ridge towards Williams Peak. As we hiked we had spectacular views looking up the Fishhook Creek drainage, dominated by Horstmann Peak and Mt. Heyburn. I climbed the east summit of Mt. Heyburn many years ago via the north couloir. It's one of the hardest climbs I ever did, although really good climbers would say it was easy. Heck some people even ski down it. I would still like to climb Horstmann some day. It isn't technically difficult but the peak is quite remote. There are no trails that go anywhere near it so it takes a lot of bushwhacking just to reach the base of the mountain.

There is a stable near Redfish Lake and a lot of people do trail rides along the Alpine Way. When I hike this section I always keep a lookout for horse manure so I don't step in it while I'm staring off at the mountains. That's why I saw that there was a big pile of it in the middle of the trail. I also saw Abby get down and start to roll over towards it. People probably heard me shriek all the way back in Boise but at least it made Abby stop. For some unknown reason she wanted to roll around in the wet, smelly horse poop. She did that once before on a hike we did up at Bogus Basin and I did not want to repeat the experience. Fortunately I saw her and was able to stop her just in time. If she had managed to roll around and cover herself in horse poop, she might have been walking back to Boise.

Eventually we reached the unsigned junction where an unmaintained hiker/climber track splits off and heads into the Thompson Peak cirque. That was the way I had always gone in the past but this time I kept right and stayed on the main trail. It did a level traverse for about half a mile along the ridge that eventually leads up to Williams Peak. It crossed an open slope so there was a nice view of the Stanley Valley and the White Cloud Peaks on the other side.

As the trail rounded a corner it entered forest again where it turned and headed downhill on the other side of the ridge. It's always tough to give up elevation like that, especially when you know that you will have to climb it again on the way back. Since I couldn't see the lake through the trees I had no idea how far I had to descend. Turns out that it was only about three hundred feet, so not so bad. Then at another unsigned junction the Alpine Way trail continued on to the Iron Creek trailhead. A spur trail crossed the outlet creek on a log and then reached Marshall Lake in a few hundred yards.

The shoreline was not well defined, just a lot of tall, marshy grass. Abby dove right in and had fun splashing her way to the lake. Labs will be labs. Behind the lake was a steep wall, which rose to the summit of Williams Peak on the right and a subsidiary peak on the left. In the middle of the wall was a large waterfall coming down from a cirque just below Williams Peak, where the topo map shows there is another small lake. Marshall Lake may not be as spectacular as some other spots in the Sawtooths but it is definitely a pretty spot.

...with mosquitoes. It wasn't just Abby who liked the marsh on the edge of the lake. After about five minutes of enjoying the view I decided that it was definitely time to head back. The climb back up to the ridge went quickly and then from there on the going was easy.

As we descended the ridge we passed quite a few parties going the other direction. Because of our early start we were on our way back while they were still heading up. It was glad we were almost done because the afternoon was getting very warm. We were almost at the trailhead when we passed Fishhook Creek again and Abby was quick to jump in. She had a good drink and got cooled off. When she climbed out she stood right next to me and shook herself off. Now I wasn't hot anymore either. Then it was just a short walk on a very dusty trail to the car. I had one wet, muddy dog. Fortunately I had our doggie seat cover in the back so she didn't make a mess in the car.

It was a short drive to Stanley where we stopped at Papa Brunee's for a late lunch. They allow dogs on their patio so it isn't just my favorite pizza place in Stanley, it's Abby's as well. The two of us split a cheese pizza. It's always great after a good hike to sit on the patio, look at the mountains and enjoy the nice weather while eating a pizza. Abby seemed to enjoy it too. She definitely wolfed down the pizza. And when I say that she wolfed it down, I'm not kidding. She is, after all, a real wolf.

With her tummy full, Abby slept in the car all the way back to Boise. In a day or so the winds changed again and the heavy smoke returned. We were fortunate that we had been able to do a really good hike but it was the only one we mangaged to do in the month of August.