6/5/17 Idaho

Today wanted to do some hiking in Idaho before we head through. I found a great trail on All Trails that looked like it lead to a beautiful lake up on top of the mountain in Kaniksu National Forest. The trail was called Harrison Lake Trail. 

The hike up was tough, the hike down was rough. But all well worth it. 

We had to drive 20 miles back into the forest, only 8 was paved. We got to about 1.3 miles from the trailhead before we couldn't make it any further due to snow. 

So we decided to hike to the trailhead. 

The road up was deep snow but partially melted so you sunk through. By the time we got to the trail head we were already tired but we decided to do it anyway. 

The beginning wasn't too bad. Wasn't too steep and the snow was hard enough to climb on top. It became steep pretty quickly. Most of the way there was through a beautiful forest.  

After a steep climb we popped out on top to a beautiful frozen lake. The ice was melting and the water underneath was sky blue. We even remembered food this time!

On the way down we lost our foot tracks and had zero cell service as we expected. We spent some time scrambling around the mountain trying to find the trail and started to become nervous.  Eventually we found it and were able to follow it down. Kyle's knee is in bad shape which didn't help the scenario.

This path was more difficult than Mount Washburn because the climb was longer and steeper. We didn't have sheer cliffs this time, but there was only one set of footsteps this year and they were old so there was no one around but the bears. It's very difficult to follow a trail in the snow, especially when it's wooded so you have no idea where you are. We were exhausted and happy to see the end of the trail, of course then we still needed to trek 1.3 miles in slush. Overall we did a total of a little over 7 miles. 

We were all exhausted so we decided to turn in early and find a campsot in that national forest for the night. We found an awesome dispersed campsot near a beautiful creek. 

We even had our own little enchanted forest with wildflowers. 

Maya did awesome but she was pooped!