Blue Lake
The Blonde Wolf roaming the mountains
After Sandy, Abby and I did our walk along the Greenbelt, we were ready for the mountains. I picked Blue Lake, in the mountains near Cascade. I had visited it over ten years ago with my friend Dave Thiel when we had passed it on our way to the summit of Tripod Peak. The drive was shorter than to the Sawtooths, which appealed to Sandy. The hike itself was short. That was good as we were still being conservative with Abby. If she had knee problems I didn't want to carry her for miles to get back to the car. She weighs seventy-five pounds. But the hike was in real mountains, to a lake in a pretty alpine setting.
Although it's shorter than a trip to the Sawtooths, it isn't shorter by much. It took us just about two hours to get to the trailhead. Fortunately Abby is very good riding in the car. Laney in her later years was terrible when we drove anywhere and Sandy and I are still emotionally scarred from that. By the time that we pulled into the Blue Lake Trailhead parking area, all three of us were ready to quit riding and start hiking.
Sandy on the trail approaching Blue Lake
When I first moved to Idaho I learned the hiking seasons pretty quickly. During summer the Sawtooths were full of people and full of bugs. I did most of my hiking and climbing in the fall after Labor Day weekend. But now that isn't feasible. With climate change, fire season gets worse and worse every year. Once major forest fires start the whole western United States gets covered in smoke. Every year the fire season starts earlier so the window for hiking in clear weather also moves up. And I have to admit that with the pandemic last summer and other problems the summer before, I hadn't done much hiking for a while. My memory had faded. But it came back quickly as soon as we were out of the car. While we laced up hiking boots and put on packs, the flies found us and started to attack. When the bugs are bad the best thing to do is keep moving, so we got ready as fast as we could and got on the trail.
Abby doesn't care how cold the water is
The hike to Blue Lake is short, only 1.3 miles. It's an inverted trail, with the trailhead higher than the destination. The trail drops 550 feet to the lake so it is fairly steep. Downhill makes for easy going so we moved quickly. Not fast enough for Abby though. The Blonde Wolf was in her element and she roamed far and wide as Sandy and I descended the trail to the lake.
Going downhill we were moving quickly so the bugs weren't too bad. But we were not able to stop. Even pausing for a photograph allowed the flies to zero in on your position. We had to keep moving. But it was a bright sunny day, the sky was blue and the scenery was great. It was good to be in the mountains after having been cooped up for over a year by the pandemic.
It took less than an hour to reach the lake. Abby is a lab so she was in the water right away. All I can say is that she is tough. There were still snow patches on the mountains and the water in the lake had to be close to freezing. She didn't seem to care and dove right in.
Watching intently for lunch to arrive
Although Abby was having fun swimming, Sandy and I were not inclined to linger at the lake. As soon as you stopped, the bugs found you. We reached the lake, I snapped a couple of pictures and then we were ready to head back.
Because we were climbing on the way back we were a lot slower (I guess we should have been in better shape!). The bugs were more annoying but we did keep moving so they weren't terrible. We had incentive to keep moving. We made pretty good time on the return leg and as soon as we reached the car we piled in and shut the doors. One or two bugs got in with us but Sandy hunted them down while I drove back to the highway.
The bugs were annoying but still it was a fun hike. It was good to be back in the mountains again.
With all that hiking we had worked up an appetite. We stopped in Horseshoe Bend for lunch. For decades I had been driving through Horseshoe Bend on my way to the Sawtooths or other destinations. There is a restaurant right next to the river, called the Riverside Restaurant (duh!) that I always wanted to try. But in all these years I had never stopped there. They had a nice patio right on the river that looked like a great spot for lunch. I had checked their website and it said that they were dog friendly. So today was the day. We stopped and ate our lunch right next to the water. It was a beautiful sunny day and we could feel good about our short but pretty hike in the mountains. Plus Sandy and Abby both agreed that the hamburgers there were delicious.
