Day Five--Cross Country Adventure and Finis!

Slightly less than a year later, I've reached the final day of photos!! This is a long post, but I decided to leave the whole day as one post. It is a pretty awesome day with a lot of variety and even though there are a lot of photos here, I was actually pretty restrained in my picture-taking.

The first three are morning pictures of our campsite. As you can see, if I were really ambitious, I would piece some of them together for a panorama, but you'll just have to imagine that part. It was a very serene and quiet setting. During the evening some deer kept trying to join us for dinner, which even though disney movies suggest otherwise, is actually less than idyllic.

As shown in the previous day's photos, the campsite was at the lowest of a series of three lakes. On the last day, we cross-country (no trail) hiked to each of those lakes and then joined up with a trail to hike over Sawtooth pass and down the other side. Originally we were going to camp just on the other side, but we got there at a decent hour, so we decided to just hike out (which turned out to be a couple more miles than we thought, but they were gentle downhill miles so it was ok).

I didn't take any pictures between the first lake (Spring Lake) and the second (Cyclamen Lake) because I was busy adjusting to the whole off trail hiking thing. Cyclamen was amazing though! I love these big rocks and all the reflections, so I have a lot of photos here--complete with people showing you the huge scale of these rocks.

There was more cross-country to the next lake and I took a few pictures this time, mostly of the route scouts who proceeded ahead.

Above is looking back towards the lakes we have just left as we arrive on the plain of the third lake, Columbine. Below we are making our way to the lake which you can see sort of middle left. Below that are two pictures from Columbine's edge where we had lunch. It was nice and high with snow and everything.

Next we rejoined the trail and hiked up a pretty steep ascent. It was somewhere between exhausting and awesome with the wildflowers and snow (in the same picture even!!).

At the top finally! Below are views looking back to Columbine Lake, over to Sawtooth itself, and generally around from the top. We even ran into someone up there who had hiked up the other side (which did not look fun as it was a lot of shale covered trail). It was great going down the shale switchbacks though--fast and easy.

Our last lake stop--Monarch Lake. This was supposed to be our last campsite, but we arrived at a decent hour and it was pretty crowded, so we decided to just hike the last few miles out to the car. We booked it for most of it and were very tired when we got to the end, but it was a nice final hike.

Day Four--over the pass and to the lake

After the little side trip, we put our packs back on and hiked up and over another pass. It was a good climb, so we stopped for the views at the top of course, and a few along the way.

(Above) We'll be hiking to those lakes to the right later.

After this photo stop a little ways down, we hiked the rest of the way down the mountain and cross country across the meadow and then up a bit to the lake you can see in the photo above. I managed to get some dust in my eye though, so I was busy trying to see and didn't take any photos of that portion of the adventure. (For those tired of mountains, day five is the last day and then on to new subjects!)

Day Four Side Trip

The next morning we hiked up to Little Five Lakes and then left our packs at a campsite before taking a little extra detour down a trail and off trail to visit another lake.

Above, Little Five Lakes and the surrounding meadow. Below, the off trail adventure.

Spring!!

I'm way, way behind on actually writing this post and putting up this photo. The weather this week may indicate I've totally missed spring and now its summer...still, I'm very excited that spring and the farmer's market are finally here. The farmer's market is one of my favorite things about Madison. Not so much because I actually like walking around the square at 2 miles per hour, but because I love fresh food and cooking. The first outdoor market was several weeks ago now, but I couldn't go (do to a self-imposed dissertation vacation, which contributed to a first draft of a chapter!) I've been a few times since, but still have a pretty sparse number of pictures. The above is one though.

One of my summer projects (besides my dissertation, which of course is the main summer project!) is to eat local as much as possible. I've been listening to some Michael Pollen audiobooks at the gym and am inspired to make an effort on this front, especially since Madison has such great options. More on this as it happens.

Last weekend I made it downtown very early to pick up some Spinach to continue my Indian cooking experiments. I promise this isn't going to become a food photo blog (mountain photos will continue to dominate!), but since I know at least one occasional visitor is a fan of such things, you get one such photo :)

Evening Outing to the Big Five Lakes

Campsite Arrival Group Shot! As I said before the hike up and then down to the second of Big Five lakes was relatively short and not particularly difficult, but it was steep and the hike down was a bit brambly, so here we are with slightly increased heart rates, happily arrived. It was a lovely setting when we finally found the best spot to put our tents.



Next we took off on a little side hike to Big Three, Four, and Five Lakes. Our book/online info said that there weren't many good campsites further along, but that it was well worth the walk. It was a fun little hike since it was a little more off trail, which we did a lot of this trip compared to normal. It was a bit buggy though. And on a final note, part of the lack of pictures at the first of the five lakes was that I was using a new filter on my camera and there seemed to be a small spot that created a glare in a bunch of the pictures; its evident in the first two below as well unfortunately.












The final lake was truly beautiful with really fantastic rock in the mountains behind. It had a pretty awesome meadow, stream laced area leading up to it too. It was very calm, still, and quiet there too. It was getting a little dusky though, so most of the area was in shadow and with no tripod, these don't really do it justice. So just imagine it being even awesomer than these.