Maplewood

Thur 30 Sept. We were hopeful for good weather today, certainly the clear very starry night and the chilly but blue sky morning was promising, so we set of to do the loop we were hoping to do yesterday until the rain sent as on a shorter loop. Going past Twin Lakes today, we realized the little puddle we thought was the twin wasn't the second lake but just a puddle between the lakes. Again the autumn colors were a real highlight of the hike. We passed lots of lakes on our loop but Black Lake was the most beautiful, coming down onto it, the water looked so turquoise between the trees. We stopped here for lunch then headed for Mt Aeneas via Picnic Lakes. As we got close to Picnic Lakes we could see the cloud / fog was blowing in again and when we got to the intersection for Mt Aeneas, there was no sign of the mountain in front of us, just a blanket of white, so there was no point climbing it, because we wouldn't see anything so took the track back to Camp Misery trailhead. Stats: 16.7 km, active 4 hrs 15, elevation gain 721 m, highest altitude 2069 m. Looking at the map when we got back to the carpark, I saw there was a 1.2 mile track up to the hill top south of the carpark, and with the cloud heading this way, we dropped our bags at the van, and headed up to try and catch the view before it got blanketed out. We did get up in time for a view but it was really weird with a thick layer of cloud that formed a ceiling on our lookout of Flathead Lake and valley. And that brings the end of our second month of travels. During September we have travelled about 1731 km, from the mountains of Banff through the prairies south of Calgary to the unpretentious gem of Waterton National Park, to the grandeur of Glacier National Park, and now the unspoiled Flathead National Forest, Montana, USA. We have hiked around 400 kms of trails, and marveled at the size, shapes and colour of the mountains, swam the border from Canada to USA, plus tested the waters of other icy cold lakes, and in the last week enjoyed the changing colors of the forest with the autumn leaves. The Rockies of 🇨🇦 and 🇺🇸 have been an excellent start to our overseas odyssey. Steps V 31888Read more